The Sun-Herald

WHO WE ARE: What's your favourite country?

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A column about Australia by David Dale
Because we find our own land boring, Australians are among the world's greatest international travellers. We don't mind spending the odd weekend up or down the coast, but when we get a couple of weeks of spare time, we gotta get outa this place.

In the 12 months to June, Australians made 5.7 million journeys overseas, compared with 5.1 million journeys a year ago and 3 million ten years ago. The Bureau of Statistics tells us that the median age of travelling Australians in the last financial year was 42 and the median length of time away was 15 days.

So we're going abroad more and we're going to different places. Based on the section that asks "country where you spent the most time" on those cards you fill in when you re-enter Australia, the Bureau discovered that the land we escape to most is New Zealand (even if we end up finding they're not that different from us -- go here to learn why they might as well become two states of Australia).

The Kiwis were also our favourite hosts ten years ago. But Indonesia has dropped dramatically in our affections -- from 10.7 per cent of Australians' journeys in 1998 to 5.8 per cent now. Funny how a couple of bombs can put you off a place.

Britain has also declined -- from 10.8 per cent of Australians' journeys ten years ago to 7.5 now, and so has the USA - from 11.4 to 8.6. Fear of delays through excessive security?

Meanwhile we've fallen in love with Thailand -- up from 3.4 per cent of our journeys ten years ago to 7.1 now; and China -- up from 2.7 to 5.0 (and this was before the Olympics). The top ten is completed by Singapore, Fiji, Hong Kong and Malaysia (all unchanged at around 3.5 per cent of our journeys).

But reading the Bureau's report, I was puzzled by the absence of Italy. It has been, after all, the most influential country on Australia's current lifestyle, supplying our national foods (spag bol and pizza), drinks (cappuccino and latte), fashion (Armani and Scali), farewell (Ciao), and attitude (Mediterranean mellow) -- not to mention the State politicians (please).

Don't Australians make pilgrimages to The Source? Aren't Australians part of the horde of Anglos who swarm the hills of Tuscany and the bridges of Venice every summer in search of the secret of human happiness?

When you dig into the tables supplied with the Bureau's report, the figures tell the hidden story: In the year to June 1998, 61,000 Australian travellers said the land where they spent the most time was Italy. In the year to June 2008, 172,500 nominated Italy. Those figures don't include the Australians who popped over to the Mediterranean as part of a trip to Britain.

So travel to Italy has almost trebled in a period when travel to Indonesia has halved and travel to Thailand has doubled. Italy may not get the same numbers as Thailand (403,000 of us went there last financial year), but it has the growth. The boom is on.

This is as it should be. Australia is, after all, Italy's most successful colony since the Roman Empire.

Go to Comments to tell us your favourite country in the world, and why you like to visit it.

David Dale is the author of Who We Are -- A snapshot of Australia today (Allen and Unwin). To discuss Australian attitudes, go to http://blogs.sunherald.com.au/whoweare.