Australian consumers are ready to allocate funds for holidays again reported Roy Morgan in its ‘Holiday Tracking’ survey.

The intention to take a holiday is up on both last year’s and last quarter’s figures, with 70.1% (12.7 million) of Australians aged 14-years and older, indicating that they’ll take at least one holiday in the next 12 months, compared to 69% (12.5 million) in the last quarter and 67.5% (12 million) in the July 2009 quarter.

Jane Ianniello, international director of tourism, travel and leisure said, “With consumer confidence recovering since the Global Financial Crisis an increasing percentage of Australians are intending to take a holiday in the next 12 months.”

The results show intention for both domestic and international travel, with a split of 57.9% intending to holiday locally and 8.4% intending to travel overseas. Local figures are 1% up from last year and international travel figures are up 0.6% on last year’s figures.

Ianniello continued, “Although the percentage of Australians intending to go overseas on their next holiday has increased steadily over the past five years, it is only in the past few years that the percentage intending to holiday in Australia has gradually increased after a slight decline from mid 2006 to mid 2008.