Coronavirus: Business ready to roll as border gates fall

Queensland’s reopening of borders to Sydney and Victoria has been received with relief and a degree of apprehension by the tourism industry.

Future looking brighter … Sofitel chef Katrina Jung, left, and Jenna Burnes, the company’s regional development manager. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

From unbridled glee to sheer ­relief, tourism and travel operators have heralded the reopening of Queensland to the people of Sydney and Victoria as the best Christmas present possible.

After months of empty rooms, cancelled flights and lost bookings, quarantine-free travel ­between Australia’s biggest cities is again on the menu from ­December 1 following Tuesday’s announcement by Premier ­Annastacia Palaszczuk.

Australian Tourism Industry Council chief executive Simon Westaway said the border ­reopening would deliver a much-needed windfall for operators, after losses of an estimated $21m a day since late July.

“The announcement today is really important but let’s hope they stick to the script in terms of ‘open means open’,” Mr Westaway said. “We’ve got a long way to go to build things back, and hopefully now there will be an understanding that we can’t go on having hard border closures with such low levels of the virus.” 

Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin Australia responded quickly to the announcement, scheduling more than 1000 additional flights in and out of Queensland in the lead up to Christmas.

Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce said the state should expect to see a lot more visitors in coming weeks, based on the ­demand for airline seats. “We can’t wait to see a repeat of the heartwarming scenes in Melbourne and Sydney this week with families reuniting after months apart,” he said.

Flights between Brisbane and Sydney would jump from five a day, to 20 a day, while Brisbane-Melbourne services would ­increase tenfold, from two to 20 a day. Gold Coast Airport also stood to benefit, with scheduled flights skyrocketing from fewer than 40 a week to more than 250.

While there was some concern the reopening could be short-lived in the event of a new COVID outbreak interstate, Brisbane Airport CEO Gert-Jan de Graaff said they would adapt to whatever came their way.

“That’s the risk we face for at least another six months and maybe longer until a vaccine is available,” he said. “Up until then we have to live with that risk.”

Flight Centre founding director and major shareholder ­Graham Turner was more apprehensive about future “knee-jerk border closures” and the devastating impact on businesses like his. “It’s really important that states don’t shut down again, ­regardless of what happens to hotspots, because that’s caused enormous disruption like we saw in Adelaide,” he said.

Since Queensland closed its borders to NSW and Victoria, Flight Centre’s usual revenue of about $250m a month had sunk to $20m, well below costs of $35m.

Village Roadshow theme parks chief operating officer ­Bikash Randhawa said reopening borders was the best Christmas present they could get, as 80 per cent of their market came from interstate. Simon McGrath, chief executive of Accor Pacific, which owns the Sofitel hotel chain, said the decision had given hope to thousands of travel workers.