Digital consumer spending witnessed an overall decline in Australia in the last quarter, but travel purchases bucked the trend, a recent study revealed.
According to the Q3 Digital Economy Index by financial platform Airwallex, there was a nationwide drop of $2.9 billion year-on-year over the past quarter in Australian online spending.
The data shows a year-on-year decrease in online spending across all sectors, ranging from 1.3 per cent for digital and technology to over eight per cent for retail and e-commerce.
But the travel industry has been an exception, recording remarkable growth of 12.8 per cent Y-O-Y and 6.5 per cent since the previous quarter.
Matt Sek, the Vice President of Growth for Australia and New Zealand at Airwallex, expects a boost in digital spending during Q4, driven by the peak sales season.
“Official data shows Australians have collectively around $250-300 billion in their savings accounts. Savvy businesses will seek ways to maximise the upcoming sales season to get customers spending again,” Sek said.
“The businesses that do the best over the next three months will be the ones that find the savings and efficiencies in their cost base to offer the sorts of discounts and deals Australians are used to during peak sales season.”
Sek added that other industries could learn from the travel sector’s success to boost online spending.
“There’s a sense of optimism that the signs are there for a spending turnaround and online businesses are keen to learn how they can replicate the success and resilience the travel sector has seen,” he remarked.
In May, a major CBA report showed that Australian consumers were throwing their budgets out the window in order to travel, despite showing that cost-of-living pressures had been steadily rising since late 2022.
Earlier this year, a Tripadvisor study revealed that Aussies allocated one in five discretionary dollars (19 per cent) to holidays, giving leisure travel the largest share of consumers’ annual budgets (tied with eating out).
