But nothing is going to kill the short domestic break- after all, Australia is an island and workers are time poor.

Look at Thredbo Alpine Ski Resort for example- apart from drinking coffee in Melbourne, Thredbo offers one of Australia’s most European experiences. Hardly surprising given that the blokes who started Thredbo back in 1957 were Europeans working on the Snowy Hydro Scheme. Aeropelican flies to nearby Cooma from Sydney daily and the drive from Canberra is about 2.5 hours. Very do-able.

Unlike other ski resorts in Australia (and there are many), Thredbo has a village with services- doctor, chemist, library, petrol station and supermarket for example which cater not only for the visitors but the local resident population of about 300 people.

Accommodation is sold on thredbo accommodation wotif and Stayz. You’ll pay $200 a night in peak season for a very basic room in Thredbo but the cheaper options are in nearby Jindabyne or Thredbo Valley.

Most of the accommodation in the village has a view out to the snow covered mountain, complete with ski lifts, ski runs and not surprisingly skiers and snowboarders. Most of the cafes and restaurants sell Gluewein- hot mulled, spicey wine, good German Riesling and French champagne. You’re also in the right town for a traditional Swiss fondue.

In the Thredbo Valley, Wildbrumby Distillery will provide you with free tastings of butterscotch, raspberry, peppermint, chilli or apple schnapps. Their vodka is 50% alcohol so not recommended for drivers. Right opposite at Crackenback Farm you can have sensational wood fired pizza and get lost in the maze ( not recommended for impatient types).

And while skiing in Australia is about as odd as bobsledding in the Caribbean, Australia does a good job of it. The slopes are groomed and the huge snow making effort extends the season and adds to the fun factor.

So look, Europe is very attractive but you can get a taste of it right here in Thredbo. Thredbo

Harold Mitchell, the executive chairman of Australia’s largest media buying company, Mitchell Communications, has thrown his support behind Labor’s $43 billion national broadband network, warning the Coalition’s cheaper broadband policy will send Australia back in time.

He’s also tipping a Labor Party win on August 21, despite expressing misgivings about how the party ousted former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Rudd isn’t the only former Labor leader on Mitchell’s mind – the veteran media man describes Channel Nine’s hiring of Mark Latham as a reporter for 60 Minutes as a ‘distraction’, albeit in a ‘ratings bonanza’ kind of way, following a controversial decision by the Nine Network to recruit the former Labor leader as a reporter for a special edition of the current affairs program.

Never shy of offering his opinion, the talented Mr Mitchell is more effusive than ever when speaking to Business Spectator just days after Mitchell Communications received at $363 million takeover bid from London-based Aegis Group. Mitchell has agreed to accept the offer for the 40 per cent of shares he and his family controls in Mitchell Communications.

Madeleine Heffernan: Who do you reckon’s going to win the federal election?

Harold Mitchell: I think it’ll be Labor. I think people almost always make up their mind before the election has been called and it’s there for someone to lose. In the frenzy of the election campaign, you can get carried away with the cut and thrust of it and the polling. But I think Labor was there; it’s rare for any government to be thrown out in their first term, although it hasn’t treated the people with the greatest respect by overturning a leader in his first term.

MH: Broadband is a major differentiator between the two parties. Which policy gets your vote?

HM: Oh, the Labor policy is the only one. The Coalition policy, sadly, would send this country back at least two decades and would take us to the bottom of the table. It is a question of cost, but the priority of Australia into the future is to be modern and competitive, and without that we will be a basket-case.

MH: The latest newspaper circulation figures were pretty dreadful and we saw a recent note from Macquarie Equities suggesting Fairfax should consider ditching its print editions of The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. Should they?

HM: Fairfax will always retain their major newspapers. And it would be folly to think that you dump the absolute core of what Fairfax is and has been. But changes have to be made and I think that they’re well advanced with all of those, just as News Corp has just turned their complete attention to the digital world.

MH: So where do you get your news and entertainment from?

HM: I personally get my news from about 10 different sources, which commences probably with an iPad at 4:30 in the morning, and progressively through the day from any other source that happens. I’m not unusual – there’s probably 20 different ways now of people getting the source of news. But the key thing is, what is the news and who’s producing it? And that’s why companies like Fairfax, News and others are critical to the continuing understanding of what the news is.

MH: Separately, can you give us an update on the Melbourne Rebels [Mitchell's new part-owned rugby union team] and are you still confident about the future of rugby in Melbourne given the Melbourne Storm debacle?

HM: Sure. Rugby is ingrained in the Australian psyche, no less in Melbourne, which has many people from the northern states, from the universities that play rugby and the private schools elsewhere, throughout Australia and the world, New Zealanders and South Africans who are all here. And there’s no better way of measuring in that the Weary Dunlop lunch, which was 10 days ago, had 1400 people there. That’s only been bettered once as a regular, ongoing lunch of supporters by the Collingwood Football Club, which had about the same number. At the same time, we’ve now been open to get membership and the membership within seven days had already beaten the membership of the second soccer team that’s only just started.

MH: What job will your son, Stuart Mitchell [currently Mitchell Communications CEO], have in expanded Aegis Group?

HM: Firstly, I’m the executive chairman of Asia in the Pacific, and Stuart will take a very senior role.

MH: Now you seem pretty chuffed about [US investment bank] Allen and Co which popped up with a 5.6 per cent stake in Mitchell Communications following the Aegis bid?

HM: I am, I am. Can you imagine? They are the things that pick up Rupert [Murdoch] and Google. They run the big Sun Valley conference. In New York, they work out what’s good around the world, mostly in America. Well, they’re poured into this thing; they’ve taken an arbitrage position to do what I’ve done, which is to get into this Aegis company worldwide. It’s the best way in.

MH: And you’re comfortable with their reason for being there?

HM: Absolutely. They said, “We want you to know it’s friendly”. It is because they have to vote for it to happen because they’ve taken the same bet that I have – that this is a good idea – and if they voted against it, they’d lose the money. So I am very happy with that.

MH: Do you think that there’s a risk that Australia and the Asia Pacific will be overlooked because Aegis is UK-listed?

HM: Oh no. Aegis is Euro-centric, 85 per cent in Europe. They know that they have to rebalance. This commences the process of rebalancing it. It doubles their company in Asia. And also they recognise, and we all know, that this is the growth corridor of the world, and that’s important. And it is becoming a consumer society, which is what we live in.

MH: What do you think of the Nine Network’s decision to hire Mark Latham for 60 Minutes?

HM: It was a distraction. They don’t need it. People understand good journalism and they understand the issues. They probably don’t need to – and especially Channel Nine, they’ve had such a good reputation for delivering their product from very responsible people. It was a chance that they took to get extra viewers. It probably, on reflection, wasn’t the best thing they could have done.

MH: Do you reckon it’ll be a ratings bonanza? (60 Minutes appears on the Nine Network on Sunday night at 7:30)

HM: Unfortunately, it’ll be a ratings bonanza.

MH: Isn’t that the point, though?

HM: Not with responsible journalism, it is’t.

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/The-talented-Mr-Mitchell-pd20100813-8A9FY?OpenDocument&src=kgb

CASINO group Crown has conceded it has some way to go before gaming floor revenues return to desirable levels, despite announcing a return to profitability. Crown, which is backed by billionaire James Packer, has bounced back from last year’s impairment-marred $409 million loss, with profit for the first six months tipping $115m as revenue rose 6.3 per cent to $1.19 billion.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/news/casino-group-crown-switches-from-red-to-black/story-e6frg906-1225834927749

At the same time, Australia has reissued a travel warning for Indonesia, including Bali, declaring the island an attractive target for terrorists.

A massive security operation has been under way at Bali’s Denpasar airport since Friday’s bombings, with vehicles banked up in queues and being searched by armed police.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25811750-25837,00.html

http://www.smh.com.au/world/travel-warning-as-more-terrorist-attacks-expected-20090719-dpk9.html

The Mt Tamborine caves were officially opened by Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson on  Friday even though visitors have been coming through since 2005

http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2009/07/19/99335_gold-coast-lead-story.html

http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/tourism-spending-drops-in-2009-report-20090717-dnrw.html

Hotel occupancy rates and room 

revenue plunged in the first three 

months of the year, as companies 

cut their budgets. 

The average occupancy rate – the 

percentage of rooms filled – at 

capital city hotels was 76.7 per cent, 

down 3.3 percentage points from a 

year ago, an analysis by the Tourism 

Task Force shows. Average revenue 

per room dropped 6.3 per cent to $125. 

Hotels in Sydney were worst hit : 

average revenue per available room 

dropped by 11.7 per cent to $146. 

But Sydney still has the nation’s 

most expensive hotel rooms, 

pipping the Melbourne average of 

$138, down 6.9 per cent on a year 

ago, and Perth on $140. 

“Sydney hotels are doing it 

tough,” Australian Hotels 

Association accommodation 

division president Patrick Griffin 

said yesterday. 

“The five-star hotels are doing it 

tough in particular, compared with 

three-star hotels,” said Mr Griffin, 

who is also regional manager of 

Orient Express Hotels, which 

operates Sydney’s five-star 

Observatory Hotel. 

“There’s a pull-back of business. 

People are reviewing their budgets.” 

The reduction in corporate travel 

was heavily affecting five-star 

hotels, forcing them to be more 

competitive. 

“Rates have reduced in general 

but there are all sorts of deals going 

around,” Mr Griffin said. 

“Within the corporate conference 

market, many major chains are 

offering global deals to the conference 

markets, such as free conference base 

if you book bedrooms. This could 

include complimentary room hire and 

lunches. 

“Everybody is looking at their 

cost structure … when Sydney 

comes out of this, the hotel industry 

will be a lot stronger because there 

has been only a marginal increase in 

hotel room supply in the past couple 

of years. There’s very few hotels 

planned for the future.” 

But not all cities did so badly, the 

data shows. 

The lack of new hotel rooms in 

Perth boosted its average room 

revenue by nearly 14 per cent, and 

the average occupancy rate jumped 

1.3 per cent to 84.2 per cent. 

The number of new hotel rooms 

in Perth increased by 0.1 per cent to 

5865 from a year ago, compared 

with a 4.7 per cent rise to 11,563 in 

Brisbane and a 3.2 per cent rise to 

15,194 in Melbourne. 

Hobart’s hotels also performed 

well with occupancies up 1.1 per 

cent to 88.1 per cent – the highest 

occupancy of any city. 

A Quest Serviced Apartments 

business travel survey found more 

than 63 per cent of business 

travellers expected to travel the 

same amount in the next six months, 

despite the difficult climate. 

However, 29 per cent said they 

planned to stay in less expensive 

accommodation if they did change 

their travel habits. 

Tourism Transport Forum 

managing director Christopher 

Brown said the overall fall in 

average room rates in capital cities 

suggested accommodation suppliers 

had been heavily discounting to fill 

rooms. 

“This has provided travellers with 

bargains, but will be unsustainable 

in the long term,” he said. 

Mr Brown reiterated his calls for 

a whole-of-government approach 

“to tackle supply-side issues, 

including tourism planning and 

development, as well as marketing, 

taxation, climate change and 

infrastructure”.