While many Australians may have renewed their love for driving around during the holidays instead of traveling overseas, this development may spell bad news for the financially challenged Qantas.

Data from the National Visitor Survey, released on Wednesday, said that Aussies spend $50 billion in domestic holiday for the 12-month period to March 2012. It represents the highest level of spending in one year. The figures confirmed the four consecutive quarters of growth enjoyed by the local tourism industry.

For that period, Aussie spending for trips away from home rose 6 per cent while the number of overnight trips went up 5 percent.

"Australians are coming to the end of their love affair with everywhere else in the world and re-discovering how good their own country is," Brisbane Times quoted Tourism Australia Managing Director Andrew McEvoy.

This development reverses what tour operators observed were hard times the past few years as Australians preferred to travel overseas for their holidays while international visitors shied away due to the country due to the strong Australian currency and the perception that it is an expensive place to spend vacation.

The change in domestic tourism flow was confirmed by Charlie Carlow, the chief executive officer of Wild Bush Luxury, which runs several high-end properties in three Australian states.

Matt Cross, the general manager of a tour company that offers dolphin watch cruises, explained the shift to the difficult times which are slowly being eased by interest rate cuts.

"Times have been tough. The cost of electricity, cost of fuel and cost of everything going up stagnated the economy and now that we see the easing of interest rates of the dollar I think domestic travel is more appealing," he told Brisbane Times.

However, this development may worsen the flag carrier's woes amid plunging share values. As it is, Qantas suffered huge losses in 2011 because of its problem with unions and exacerbated by the unilateral grounding of its fleet for two days.

The result is that the Qantas brand, particularly its international operations suffered from these labor and operations problems that Qantas Chief Executive Alan Joyce had to split the air carrier into four independent units to assure the survival of the flying roo.

Worst hit is Qantas's international operations which would likely cringe at the news that Aussies have traded their international boarding passes for their car keys again. Even domestic operations, which had been profitable, would likely suffer some dent as Aussies opt to drive around the country during the holidays rather than fly to local tourist destinations.

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