Aviation, travel, leisure stocks continue to slide on virus fears

Ardent Leisure, Corporate Travel Management and Webjet were among the worst hit while Flight Centre, Qantas also took a hit.

People arrive at the Brisbane airport on Wednesday. Picture: AAP

Investor anxiety over the impact of the coronavirus on tourism has seen aviation and travel businesses endure another day of sharemarket misery.

Among the worst hit were theme park owner Ardent Leisure, with shares diving 13.5 per cent to 77c, Corporate Travel Management with a 9.2 per cent fall to $12.27 a share, and Webjet, down 8.7 per cent to $8.54 a share.

Flight Centre, Qantas and Sydney Airport also took further hits along with Air New Zealand, which announced the airline carried a passenger from Singapore to Auckland last month who tested positive for Covid-19 a week later.

IbisWorld senior industry analyst Tom Youl said the declines were “pretty much all coronavirus driven” and were not helped by uncertainty over the extent of the crisis. “The tourism industry was already doing it a bit tough, after an underwhelming result in 2018-19,” Mr Youl said.

“Australia had been growing inbound visitor numbers by 6 per cent to 8 per cent a year prior to that, but last year that slowed to 1.5 per cent due to the stagnation of tourists from China which barely grew at all.

“That was before the bushfires and before coronavirus so there were already some troubling signs and that’s been exacerbated by a difficult start to the year.”

Flight Centre spokesman Haydn Long agreed it was a “challenging time for all companies” but on the upside, consumers were seeing some incredible deals.

“Coronavirus has had an impact on global travel patterns but it certainly hasn’t stopped people from travelling,” Mr Long said.

Analysis by the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation showed international capacity into Australia was down 10 per cent year on year, for the week starting February 24.

Korean Air became the latest airline to announce extension capacity cuts on Wednesday, decreasing flights from Seoul to Sydney from daily to three times a week, and suspending its Seoul-Brisbane route until April 25.