What
simongr merely pointed out was that your two examples side by side showed the international itinerary as being more expensive than the domestic one. But also it showed that $1,300 seems like a lot just to pay for a weekend of golf in our backyard (well, in MEL anyway).
If you are prepared to pay, in this case, ~$400 more (or about 25%) to enjoy a holiday overseas compared to home, that is your choice.
Also there are differences in your examples and discrepancies in your reasoning:
- Firstly, the quoted example is for Anzac weekend. It's a public holiday - any surprises that you need to be an early bird to get a good deal on travel and what not? For example, on a recent sale you could easily get the MEL r/t for about $100 less than what you've quoted there.
Hotels are much the same. Holidays and events will always mean a bit of shuffling with the prices of rooms (or the arrangement of the price buckets). Good examples in Australia include Easter weekend and Schoolies. A good international example is Chinese New Year.
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JohnK said:
Airfares are expensive (not interested in LCC's)
Yes they are expensive, but if you're not interested in LCCs that really only leaves one player.
Moreover, places like Broome are price-skewed for more reasons than just lack of competition. Some places like Maroochydore and Prosperpine aren't serviced by QF (the only full cost carrier in Australia), so looks like irrespective of the quality of golf courses there, JohnK's not going! 
(just kidding...)
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JohnK said:
Accommodation is way overpriced
Yeah I can concur with that, although wotif surprisingly still shows some very decent places for $100/night and under in MEL for Anzac weekend. Of course, you're not going to find a place for $25 per night unless you go to a hostel.
Due to differences in living standards, your dollar is always going to get you more in Bangkok than in Melbourne. Nothing is going to change that (or soon anyway).
Not sure what standard your $25/night accommodation in BKK is - I'm imagining it's either 2* or 3*. The example you gave for MEL was using 2 x special vouchers and is a 5* hotel; not a very fair comparison. But again it'll always be impossible to find a better-than-hostel accommodation for $25/night in Melbourne; not much about that you can do.
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JohnK said:
Food, where does one start? We went to a place in Brisbane where the steak was $40 without anything else on the plate, need to pay extra $8-10 for salad or chips
Again, standards of living dictate the prices and Australia is pretty high on dining out prices, even after the GFC. Again, not much to be done about that.
To be fair, I don't think a $40 steak alone is typical and if you didn't want to pay that there are plenty of pubs in Australia that will sell you a fairly tasty steak with sides for $8 - $15. So giving that example as typical is flawed. Mind you, it's probably rare (no pun intended) that one would pay $40 for a lone steak anywhere in the world unless you had a really good reason.
Finally, if we compare the food bills in your example, the Melbourne tags only $10 more than Bangkok. Either you're humouring us in your example or something is wrong.
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JohnK said:
Beverages are way over the top (hint I can buy a case for what some pubs/clubs charge for 6 drinks)
See previous point.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and challenge
anyone on this forum to construct a long weekend itinerary ex-BNE for
JohnK to golf in MEL for half the price he found and sticking to non-LCCs only, even if it isn't for Anzac long weekend. Include flights, transport, accommodation, golfing expenses (except club hire), food and alcohol/drink. I'd say it's nigh impossible, but that's not entirely surprising, that's just the way it is.
IMO there are a few main reasons why internal tourism in Australia is weak:
- Never has Australia seen the ability to travel internationally as so financially accessible - that definitely puts a glow factor on it. Yes, this is mainly due to LCCs, but irrespective, that is the truth. (Notice how LCCs have also driven more people to travel within Australia - many a bogan story anyone?). Gen Y, backpackers and students are taking full advantage of this. People like JohnK look at a price-on-price comparison and reckon, "Well, I could pay this much and go to Melbourne (boring!) or pay a tad bit more and go to Thailand (exotic!)". Just the way it is.
- Circumstances - plain and simple. Neighbours like Malaysia and Thailand have lower standards of living and hence to us their products and services are usually cheaper.
- You have to remember that hotels, tourism providers etc. supply services to people both in Australia and for overseas tourists. Australia has a fairly healthy international tourist market; if a hotel can be functional or profitable with only its international tourists and other business-stay clients, why should it feel the need to cater prices for the domestic tourist? If they lower prices for the domestic tourist, then they'll still sell the same rooms to almost the same demographic of clients, but with less profit.
- This has been mentioned before, but it stands to reason that hotels "are expensive" in Australia only because the market dictates them so! Even in the "business-dead" periods (i.e. where there are not a lot of hotel stays due to business-related stays), the lower prices are still more expensive than our international counterparts (standards of living arguments aside), but we still find that most weekends hotels will be pretty packed, leaving only the most expensive rooms left for those who didn't book far enough in advance.
If we try and set a more even playing field, why don't we compare the prices of getaways to more comparable cities/nations with a similar standard of living to Australia? I pulled out the list of top 50 cities for Quality of Living 2009 as measured by Mercer*, and it seems that the only cities outside of Australia with comparable living standards that would be suitable for a weekend getaway are Auckland, Wellington and Singapore; Tokyo, Osaka or Kobe if you're feeling temporally adventurous. FWIW Bangkok ranks 120 on the 2009 list. I'll leave the comparisons up to the reader.
* The use of this list is purely through a Google search and picking the most reasonably popular ranked link. The quoting of this list does not attest or confirm the validity, accuracy, social acceptance or single-authority of this list or the methodology used to construct it.
Especially on a new Tumi laptop bag which retails for A$395 here (A$359 after TRS) compared to A$226 in the US.
