Tourism boss eyes August 1 as date when NT borders could reopen

THE head of the NT Government’s Tourism Rebound Taskforce has nominated a potential date for the end of the Territory’s border restrictions.

The head of the NT Government’s Tourism Rebound Taskforce has nominated August 1 as a potential date for the end of the Territory’s border restrictions. Picture: News Limited

THE head of the NT Government’s Tourism Rebound Taskforce has nominated August 1 as a potential date for the end of the Territory’s border restrictions.

Michael Bridge, who is also Tourism NT’s chair of the Board of Commissioners, says despite his opinion about August 1, he didn’t expect the NT Government to open borders before September 1.

“I think if things continue nationally and particularly here in the Northern Territory that there is opportunity for that date to be brought forward and potentially maybe even August 1,” Mr Bridge said.

Mr Bridge’s comments come at the same time as Qantas boss Alan Joyce announcing he is putting in place back-to-the-skies plans for July.

Qantas confirmed with the NT News it was talking to the NT Government about ways to boost tourism once travel restrictions were lifted.

“There is a possibility that we might have nearly all the states and territories opening up as early as July … and we’re planning for that,” Mr Joyce said.

“We have the ability to put a large amount of our capacity back in the air, dependent on demand.”

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Mr Bridge pointed to airline capacity as one of the biggest challenges for the NT.

“We had a briefing from Andrew David, the Domestic CEO of Qantas, on Tuesday and they have committed to putting capacity into the market where there is demand,” Mr Bridge said.

“So if we can create the demand, they will put the capacity on. That was one of our big concerns, that we might have all these people wanting to come and no one was prepared to put what are very expensive assets in the air and come to the Territory.

“So we think it can be done. It just can’t be done necessarily to the level that makes businesses sustainable.”

When Qantas was asked if they would consider partnering with the NT Government on an incentive scheme, such as “buy one get one free”, Qantas said it was “open to any ideas”.

“We’re obviously dependent on the borders opening … the tourism industry is calling out for those borders to open,” Mr Joyce said.

“And I think as Australians we’ve done such a great job of managing COVID-19, now’s the time to get parts of the economy working again.

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“So we’re very keen to try and get Australian tourism to help these small businesses, help these tour operators, help get people employed again.

“They obviously have to consider the health and safety issues around this, but they are now talking, I think, about July being a period where this could happen and we’re getting ready for that.

“And if governments were to make that decision, we would have aircraft people and the airfares out there to encourage people to travel.”

Mr Bridge echoed Mr Joyce’s sentiments.

“All the statistics around Australia are saying people are raring to go,” he said.

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What he and the Tourism Rebound Taskforce were trying to balance was whether the NT tourism industry may find low demand in August.

“Should the industry want to open on the first of August if they are only going to have 20 per cent demand or are we better off juggling, managing and continuing to try to support them from a cash and business perspective so that they can open on September 1 maybe with 40 or 50 per cent of demand,” Mr Bridge said.