I’m meeting a friend from childhood (from Cooranbong, NSW) tomorrow afternoon in Santa Monica. He seems to stop by Los Angeles every year or two and he always shouts me a meal.
When I left Australia in 1985, 65c US fetched $1 Australian. Now the dollars are at parity.
The Los Angeles Times reports:
When it comes to Los Angeles tourism, the Land Down Under is showing up on top these days.
Australia became the No. 1 feeder market for overseas tourists to Los Angeles in 2010, surpassing Britain and Japan, according to statistics released Tuesday by LA Inc., the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau.
The Aussies were part of a larger rebound of L.A.’s tourist industry. Last year saw the number of visitors and level of tourism spending return to pre-recession levels after a significant dip in 2009.
International visitors accounted for about 21% of the total visits and more than one-third of the tourist spending for the year.
Australia became the top overseas feeder market for Los Angeles, with 339,000 Aussies making the trip. (In terms of overall international visits, Mexico and Canada beat out the overseas markets, with more than 1.5 million visitors coming from Mexico and 561,000 from Canada.)
There are logistical reasons for the influx of Australians to Los Angeles. A strong Australian dollar brought more Aussies to the states overall, and LAX is the primary point of entry, said Wally Mariani, senior executive vice president for the Americas and Pacific for Australia’s Qantas Airways.
The airline is the busiest foreign carrier at LAX, flying at least 1 million passengers between Los Angeles and Australia in 2010.
“I think the primary change this year versus a couple years ago is the strength of the Australian versus the American dollar,” Mariani said. Australians “have always wanted to visit America. It’s always been one of the primary destinations.”
