Most visitors to Australia come from New Zealand, Japan and the United States
Australia's favourite holiday destinations are New Zealand, Indonesia, the United Kingdom and the United States
Learning intentions We are learning about the travel industry and how it connects us to the rest of the world. It is important to understand how we can get around the world and ways we can transport larger items too. Success Criteria We are successful if we can identify different forms of transport and create an itinerary for a round the world trip.
Millions of people travel overseas each year. Many Australians travel to other countries and many tourists come to Australia, Worldwide, there is a booming travel and hospitality industry. Hospitality is the welcoming of guests, so the business of welcoming guests into our country is known as the hospitality industry.
The travel and hospitality industry covers a huge range of things, from travel agencies and advertising, to airlines, cruises, coaches, hotels, motels, restaurants, camping grounds and tour groups. For this reason, there are many different jobs created by the travel and hospitality industry. There are millions of people throughout the world with jobs in travel and hospitality.
These jobs may include airline positions, management and supervisor positions, tour guides, tour operators, travel consultants, waiters, bar staff, chefs, cooks, casino workers, car hire attendants, coach drivers, phone operators, security guards, bag porters, waiters, kitchen hands and cleaners.
Travel into Australia
Did you know that there were 5.5 million visitors to Australia during the first eleven weeks of 2005? This was 6 percent more than the previous year. The average stay in Australia was 27 nights, with many people choosing to stop over in New Zealand or Singapore on the way to or from Australia.
Sixty percent of all visitors to Australia had visited us before, with most of them travelling independently rather than taking package tours. The most popular places for people to visit in Australia were Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, the Gold Coast and tropical north Queensland. Other popular places for overseas tourists to visit are Uluru, Kakadu, Broome, Jenolan Caves, The Great Ocean Road, the Great Barrier Reef, Barossa Valley, Canberra and Rottnest Island in Western Australia. Some of these places are on the World Heritage List
Why do people travel? The most popular activities for tourists were shopping, going to the beach and going to markets. All these things create more jobs for our tourist and hospitality industry.
Most visitors to Australia come from New Zealand, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom and Asia. The exact numbers of people who visited Australia from different countries in 2005 according to Tourism Australia were:
Travel out of Australia Australians love to travel. The number of Australians travelling overseas has been steadily increasing over the last ten years. Each year Australians take more than three million trips overseas. 71 percent of these trips are holidays or to visit relatives. 22 percent are business trips and 7 percent are for other reasons such as education or sport. The most popular overseas destinations for Australians are New Zealand, Indonesia, the United Kingdom and the United States.
New Zealand is very close to Australia (about a three-hour flight), so many Australians choose to travel there. We also have similar ways of life and speak the same language. This, together with the beautiful scenery and friendly nature of the New Zealand people, make it a favourite destination for Australian travellers. Popular places to visit in New Zealand include Queenstown, Rotorua and the Bay of Islands. Queenstown is a mountain village in the Otago region where you can participate in lots of daredevil activities like bungee jumping and whitewater rafting. Queenstown also has excellent ski fields. Rotorua is located in the Bay of Plenty region and is famous for its volcanic activity. At Rotorua there are boiling pools, hot springs and volcanic craters.
The Bay of Islands in the Northland region is made up of about 150 islands. There is abundant sea life there, including marlin, whales, penguins and dolphins.Indonesia is also located closer to Australia than many other countries, such as those in Europe and the United States. Indonesia is made up of thousands of islands. many of these islands do not have names and only about 6000 have people living on them. Holiday islands such as Bali, with its warm climate and cheap living costs, has long been a favourite place for Australians to visit for a holiday. Indonesia has a very different culture from Australia. An interesting cultural difference is that Indonesians never use their left hand to eat, pass objects or to touch others with. This is because they wash themselves with their left hand.
The United Kingdom is made up of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Each British country is divided into regional districts called counties. There are many sites to visit in these four countries, some of the most famous being the Roman Baths, the Tower of London, the London Eye and Stonehenge. The Roman Baths, located in the city of Bath, were built almost 2000 years ago. They are left over from when the Romans used to bathe publicly. The Tower of London, in London, houses the priceless Crown Jewels. In 1078 William the Conqueror ordered the White Tower to be built, so it is extremely old. The tower has been many things including a zoo, a prison and a palace. The London Eye is an enormous enclosed Ferris wheel where tourists can see over 55 of London's most famous landmarks. Stonehenge is a very famous prehistoric monument that is 5000 years old. Stonehenge is an arrangement of massive stones in the form of a circle. Archeologists think the standing stones were erected between 2500 BC and 2000 BC. Stonehenge is on the World Heritage List.
Many countries spend lots of money promoting their appeal to Australian tourists. Travel agencies, airlines and tour companies are all out to secure a piece of the tourism pie (this means that there are a lot of people who want to make money out of tourism). As millions and millions of people continue to travel each year, Australia's connections with our global friends have become even closer.
Task: Imagine you are a travel agent and have been asked to plan an around the world trip. Choose 4-5 popular tourist destinations and write a paragraph on each destination outlining what a tourist can do there. Draw a picture of the world and the route
How do we get around the world?
Travel is a large part of Australia's economy
Millions of people visit Australia every year
Many Australians visit other countries each year
Most people travelling overseas fly on commercial aeroplanes
Some people choose to travel by sea
There are many people involved behind the scenes of international travel
Travel is a large part of Australia's economy. Millions of visitors to Australia arrive on our shores every year. Likewise, millions of Australians head off to visit other countries each year. Travel is a great way for people to stay globally connected. So how do they get there?
There are really only two ways to travel overseas; by air or by sea. Most people choose to travel by air, as it is much quicker than by sea. Many people visit other countries as tourists on a cruise ship or an ocean liner. They are usually in no hurry and prefer to travel slowly and easily.Air travelThe majority of people travelling overseas fly with a commercial airline. There are dozens of different airlines throughout the world. Airlines are different companies which transport passengers and their luggage from one point to another. Australia's main airline is Qantas. Most Australians will choose their airline either by preference (that is, they like that airline) or by price. Sometimes airlines can offer quite different prices on the same flight. The airline industry provides a service for a price that changes according to supply and demand.
Supply and demand influences how much we pay for goods and services. If a particular good or service is rare, then we must pay more for it. Things are easier to sell when lots of people want something and there is not a lot of it around. This drives up the price of something. On the other hand, if the good or service is in plentiful supply, then we can expect to pay less as businesses compete to sell their products.For example, let's say that there was only one CD left in a shop and two people wanted it. The law of supply and demand means that the person who wants it more will be prepared to spend more on it. If, on the other hand, there were 100 CDs left and no one wanted to buy them, the shopkeeper would have to make them cheaper in order to be able to sell them. Look carefully next time you are at a music store - you will probably see a bargain bin full of discounted CDs - this is supply and demand in action.
Now you can see how the law of supply and demand can determine how much an airfare costs. It is always more expensive to fly to popular destinations at convenient times of the day. This is because more people want to do this. Cheaper flights are the ones that depart in the middle of the night as fewer people are prepared to miss out on a good night's sleep.
Sections of an airport Have you ever thought about what is involved in catching a plane? It is a lot more complicated than just arriving at the airport and showing your ticket. There are a lot of people involved in the process of air travel, from the person who sells you your ticket, to the people who work behind the scenes at the airport as well as the people who work on board the aeroplanes.
Ground services include those who look after all the air traffic and make sure that aircraft are in the right place at the right time. This is an extremely important job, as a lot of peoples' lives are at stake. Air traffic controllers have to make sure that planes take off and land safely.
There are people who look after the tarmac area (the area where the planes land and take off), organise all the flight crew and staff rosters and look after ticketing and check in. There are also people to organise baggage from the airport to the plane, plan the route or direction of the planes and make sure that everything runs smoothly around the airport.These jobs are at both ends of an international flight. This means that the same jobs are done in both destination and arrival countries. Many people spend some time working in another country as part of their airline job. These are globally-connected positions, involving people from many countries.
There are many people employed in the administration area. This includes people who organise the airline's finance (money), people who organise new employees, those who do the marketing (advertising and promoting the airline), and those who look after all the computers and communications.
The engineers are those people who work on maintaining the aircraft, as well as repairing any problems. This is also a very important job. Engineers are employed in every country where aircraft fly.
The security staff have the important job of ensuring that criminals such as terrorists cannot get through to blow up or hijack a plane. To do this they take care of procedures such as X-raying luggage and stepping through metal detectors.
The baggage handlers have the job of ensuring that the luggage does not get lost. Luggage has to be on the right track to move from the check-in area to the departure gate, from one gate to another during transfers and also from the arrival gate to the baggage claim area.
Did you know that planes do not only transport people? Goods that can be transported by air include cars, letters, packages, horses and even other planes. This is known as air freight. Cargo planes are planes that transport goods. Commercial airlines transport people.
On board every flight there is a pilot and co-pilot, as well as a flight engineer and cabin crew. Cabin crew look after the passengers and make sure everyone's flight goes smoothly. Cabin crew and pilots can often travel to many countries in the space of a week. Some flight crews are even based in other countries. Theirs is a globally-connected job.
Write a procedure on how to board a plane. If any information is missing from the above text, make sure you research it.
Sea travel
The other way to travel overseas is by sea. Generally, there are cargo ships that carry goods between countries and passenger ships or cruise liners that carry passengers.
Passenger ships are a lot slower than air travel, but some people prefer the slow, relaxed journey by sea. Cruising is one of the fastest growing areas of tourism in the world, with hundreds of ships carrying people to exciting and exotic destinations.
Cruise ships make their money from people who wish to take a cruise and see other countries by sea. On board it is like a small floating city, with shops, cinemas, casinos, swimming pools, gyms and many more activities to occupy them.
There are even cruises that cater for families or singles, retired people or even newlyweds. At present, there are around 1.2 million people employed on cruise ships worldwide. Over the next five years, over 50 new cruise ships will be launched (there are currently about 300 sailing around the world), with 100,000 new jobs to be created.
There are many people working behind the scenes on a cruise ship, from the captain and navigation crew to the stewards, cooks, bar staff, shop staff and entertainment staff.
1. How long does it take to ship something from Australia to Europe? 2. Make a list of things boats and sea travel is used for? Compare your answers to the person next to you.