It would seem that Australians are a disgrace when it comes to taking annual leave. That’s according to Federal Tourism Minister, Martin Ferguson, who is telling us that we have too much annual leave stored up and that our bosses should be encouraging us to take more short breaks.
Apparently a lot of young Australians are hoarding leave to take extended holidays overseas. Mr Ferguson wants us to take short breaks within Australia. Well, of course he does, he’s the Federal Tourism Minister.
We need to be encouraging Australians to take not just long holidays, but to take that long weekend in Tasmania, that mid-year break in north Queensland, that three or four day holiday.
I like the idea of more short breaks. I like the idea of extended holidays, both in Australia and overseas, but until I have the money for all these wonderful holidays, I’m likely to stay home. If Mr Ferguson wants to slip me a few dollars I’d be happy to holiday all over Australia.
Mind you, I’m rather interested in one comment the Tourism Minister made.
We’ve got to change our own mindset and get people to realise that a short break is as good as a long break and encourage people to actually have a holiday in Australia.
A short break as good as a long break? Really? OK, here’s the deal. If anyone’s willing to fund a long holiday for me and then a short holiday, I’m prepared to carry out research on that statement. I will give solid evidence on which is best or if they’re both the same.
So what about you? Do you stockpile holidays? Do you prefer holidays in your own country or overseas travel? Are you finding it harder to afford any kind of holiday? I’d love you to leave a few comments.
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We don’t get any choice here. We must take our leave each year and get hounded to do so.
Also from a professional point of view, it is a good internal control to have staff on leave. Reduces the likelihood of fraud.
Andrew
Interesting. I don’t have weeks of leave building up but I generally take a few shorter breaks throughout the year.
I’d never thought about reducing fraud before. I assume the reduction comes through someone else doing a person’s job several weeks a year so they don’t have total, unaudited control.
Yes, having someone else do the job increasing the chances of odd behaviour being picked up on. Accountants understand this 🙂 Also staff not wanting to take annual leave should raise a red flag. The emphasis being on should 🙂
In all honesty rodney: the only place out of the continental US I want to go is Australia. No, not Paris or England or the Holy Land or Russia. i don’t even want to go to Mexico or take a cruise to the isles. Alaska, Yes! So…if you can arrange for free passage and all the other stuff that goes with it, I would love to come visit. meet you. go to Hillsong. See Sydney. Since that will probably never happen, I will have to settle for dreaming. Hope you have a great day!!
I really wish I had a way to get you down here. I’d love to go riding with you. 🙂
That would be awesome!
I prefer longer holidays. I always need about 2 days to really be in holiday-mode. Short holidays are stressy to me. I love both, own country and overseas – I prefer countries in which I speak the language. It´s always stressy otherwise…
I’m sure you wish you could visit Perth again. If only our countries were closer together. 🙂