Will Australian tourism score a goal after the whistle blows on the FIFA Women’s World Cup? It won’t be a free kick, given the cost of hosting the event. And tourism authorities will be hoping extra time won’t be required to see real results.
But footballing puns aside, Australia’s co-hosting of the FIFA Women’s World Cup seemingly worked wonders for short-term tourism to and within the country.
According to Booking.com, which was the major online travel sponsor of the event, search demand from 28 July to 4 August for travel between 11 August and 20 August rose up to 200 per cent month-on-month for the Aussie host cities during that time, Sydney and Brisbane.
Benchmarking this demand against searches from 30 June to 7 July for the same travel period, the online travel agent saw a significant increase in search demand for the week of the finals, with Brisbane (matches 59 and 63) experiencing a 200 per cent rise in domestic user searches and 105 per cent rise in international user searches, and Sydney (matches 60, 62 and 64) seeing a 180 per cent lift in domestic user searches, and 70 per cent lift in international user searches.
Who’s looking at Australia?
Meanwhile, Expedia Group found that global searches for travel to Australia more than doubled (130 per cent week on week) between May to July this year.
It found that the majority (60 per cent) of the searches made by international travellers were for Sydney, led by guests from the US (who accounted for 25 per cent of total global interest), South Korea (10 per cent), Japan (10 per cent), New Zealand (10 per cent), and Hong Kong (5 per cent).
Other top Aussie location searches – including Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth – attracted travellers from Canada and Singapore, among other source markets.
However, the majority of searches (nearly 70 per cent) to the five Australian cities were from domestic travellers, with an average 155 per cent increase (week on week). Now that’s really getting behind your country. Aussie, Aussie, Aussie…
Elsewhere, the power of the Matildas has reached the skies, with Bonza naming its next aircraft after the national football team.