One year on from COVID-19 emerging in Australia, Uber Australia has released its latest Movement Index, which sheds light on the changes to travel and food habits of Australians over the past year.
The data shows Australians are travelling domestically and supporting local tourism, with popular vacation spots seeing similar levels of pre-COVID traffic, despite a lack of international visitors.
Limited flights or a lack of car ownership did not stop holidaymakers from traversing from their home city, with many opting for rideshare to travel long distances.
Australians have continued to embrace the habits they picked up during lockdown, such as the delivery of meals, grocery and other convenience items which grew year-on-year.
“It’s impressive to see how much can shift in six months, as restrictions across the country have largely eased,” said Uber’s General Manager, Australia and New Zealand, Dom Taylor.
“One year on and we are witnessing the nation reconnect in myriad ways. Importantly, communities have banded together to help rebuild the economy, from choosing to pick-up from their local restaurant or travelling to support domestic tourism operators.
“In Australia, the mobility business is recovering as cities reopen with gross bookings over 80 per cent recovered compared to January 2020. Equally, gross bookings across the social and workday commute have recovered to around 104 per cent and 94 per cent respectively year-on-year to January 2021, when taking the average across Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Taiwan and Hong Kong.
“We hope the findings in our latest Index will help policy leaders across our state and federal governments make informed decisions that will positively impact the future of our country and its economy.”
The Index is the second report released by Uber in the wake of COVID-19, and shows the changing patterns of demand across mobility and delivery in the second half of 2020 to January 2021, compared to January, April and July of last year.
Key findings, analysis and commentary from Uber spokespeople along with the full Movement Index Report, including charts, are available here for both Uber and Uber Eats.
