{"id":11184,"date":"2013-05-20T12:42:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T12:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/travel-industry-braces-as-aussie-dollar-plunges\/"},"modified":"2013-05-20T12:42:00","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T12:42:00","slug":"travel-industry-braces-as-aussie-dollar-plunges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/2013\/05\/travel-industry-braces-as-aussie-dollar-plunges\/","title":{"rendered":"Travel industry braces as Aussie dollar plunges"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by Peter Needham<\/p>\n

<\/a>
source: ozforex.com<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The sharp fall in the value of the Australian dollar last week will affect tourism, but the extent will depend on trends over a longer period. <\/p>\n

The currency dipped sharply and slumped below parity with the US dollar. It has now been below parity for a week. It slid to about 97 US cents on Friday, with global banking and securities firm Goldman Sachs predicting it could fall to as low as USD 0.80. That would represent a decline of almost 24% against its value just a week or two ago. <\/p>\n

For tour operators and travel agents selling overseas trips, the Aussie dollar\u2019s fall is not good news. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s bad news for Australian-based airlines too, as the cost of fuel, their greatest expense, will rise if the Australian dollar\u2019s slump lasts, though hedging can soften the blow for a time. <\/p>\n

The Australian dollar has fallen not just against the US unit but also against a raft of other currencies. Here\u2019s how much the Australian dollar buys now when you change it into some popular currencies at mid-market rates. (For comparison, its value on 1 May 2013 is listed in brackets): <\/p>\n

USD 0.97 (USD 1.02); GBP 0.64 (GBP 0.66); EUR 75 (EUR 77); NZD 1.20 (NZD1.21); SGD 1.22 (SGD 1.26); THB 29.04 (THB 30.1); IDR 9492 (IDR 9999). <\/p>\n

For inbound tourism into Australia, a weaker Australian dollar is good news. Local tourism has held up pretty well in the face of a strong Aussie dollar and any fall in the currency\u2019s value will help. <\/p>\n

Just days before the dollar suddenly fell, US financier and hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller forecast it would happen. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe think the Australian dollar will come down and will come down hard,\u201d Druckenmiller told the Sohn Investment Conference in New York. \u201cIt\u2019s expensive.\u201d <\/p>\n

The dollar subsequently opened under 99 US cents for the first time in over a year, and then fell further. Economists expect its value will continue to drop as the American economy improves and China\u2019s demand for commodities weakens. <\/p>\n

If they are right and the Australian dollar falls in a sustained manner and stays down, it could risk dampening or even killing the boom in Australian outbound travel to the US, Britain and Europe. That would affect Qantas<\/a> and other international airlines serving the Australian market \u2013 as well as hitting a lot of travel-related companies. <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Peter Needham source: ozforex.com The sharp fall in the value of the Australian dollar last week will affect tourism, but the extent will depend on trends over a longer period. The currency dipped sharply and slumped below parity with the US dollar. It has now been below parity for a week. It slid to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/traveloscopy.com\/travel-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}