In a clear second place is Australia's largest city of Sydney. Over 880,000 Australians intend to stay in Sydney for at least one night on their next trip. Queensland capital Brisbane rounds out the top three with over 570,000 Australians intending to visit and stay at least one night on their next trip.
Other popular holiday destinations for Australians include the Great Ocean Road including Torquay, Lorne, Port Fairy etc. (522,000), the North Coast NSW including Forster, Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, Port Stephens etc. (521,000) and the Hunter Valley, Newcastle, Lake Macquarie, Gloucester region just north of Sydney (437,000).
Australia's smaller Capital Cities including Canberra (388,000), Perth (348,000), Adelaide (339,000) and Hobart (313,000) rank between 8th to 14th overall as destinations Australians intend to stay for at least one night on their next trip.
Top 15 domestic destinations '000s of Australians intend to stay at least one night on next trip
Source: Roy Morgan Research
In response to the growing demand for travel to Melbourne, the city's largest airport, Melbourne Tullamarine has seen continued growth over the last decade, averaging between 3-5% of domestic traffic increasing year on year.
Melbourne Tullamarine Airport annual traffic: Domestic from 2008 to 2018
Source: CAPA - Centre for Aviation & Australia's BITRE
Roy Morgan CEO Michele Levine, says:
"To get the most value out of the data Roy Morgan collects on Australian travel intentions it's important to drill down into what really drives Australians to make the decisions they do.
"The Helix Personas data is a unique and powerful consumer segmentation and data integration tool that combines sophisticated psychographic and behavioural data to classify the Australian population into 54 Personas and six communities.
"Helix Personas shows there are significant differences between the types of people most likely to nominate a holiday to Melbourne such as 300 Aspirationals and particularly '307 Experience Seekers' and those more likely to nominate Sydney such as 400 Hearth and Home with '404 Traditional Values' the most likely.
"Analysing all ten of Australia's leading holiday destinations by Helix Personas shows different destinations attract different types of Australians. 200 Metrotechs are the most likely community to intend travel to Victoria's Great Ocean Road or Surfer's Paradise on the Gold Coast while those in the 600 Fair Go community are the most likely to plan a visit to Newcastle and the Hunter Valley region just north of Sydney.
"The Roy Morgan product allows travel agents as well as holiday destination businesses such as hotels and resorts to understand where their customers are based and which markets to target precious marketing dollars at to drive the greatest return on investment."