Flight Centre sees ‘reasonable chance’ of trips abroad in 2021

Holiday travel to Singapore, the UK and the US could resume by early November, according to optimistic forecasts by the country’s leading travel agent.

Flight Centre managing director Graham Turner: ‘This will look good for the government, if they allow Australians to visit countries with high vaccination rates like Singapore, United Kingdom and the United States.’ Picture: NCA NewsWire/Dan Peled

International holiday travel to Singapore, the UK and the US could resume by early November, according to optimistic forecasts by the country’s leading travel agent on Thursday.

Flight Centre co-founder and chief executive Graham Turner believes allowing holidays in highly vaccinated countries would be a good look for the federal government but it would still require some form of home quarantine and the production of a negative Covid test upon return to Australia.

“We need to get 70 per cent of adults vaccinated, so any place that has 70 per cent of adults vaccinated would be where we could travel,” Mr Turner said following the release of the travel agency’s results on Thursday.

“There would likely be home quarantine for three to four days after returning from one of these highly vaccinated countries and a negative test.

“That would be sensible and that’s a reasonable chance of happening at the federal and the state level … but some of the states will be recalcitrant.

“This will look good for the government, if they allow Australians to visit countries with high vaccination rates like Singapore, United Kingdom and the United States if it can get its vaccination rates above 70 per cent.”

Mr Turner said Australia can get to a 70 per cent vaccination rate for the adult population.

“(But) I think it will be a long time before we get to 80 per cent, it will be a year or two.”

He said the UK had a 60 per cent vaccination rate but they had been working a lot harder at it than Australia had for longer.

“There is still 40 per cent of (British) people that are not vaccinated, they are totally open and we will have to accept the same thing,” Mr Turner said.

But not all countries will have sufficient vaccination rates by early November.

If you are fancying a South African safari these Christmas holidays you are out of luck.

Mr Turner said the likes of South Africa with 30-40 per cent vaccination rates would not be reopened to Australian holiday-makers until later next year.

Meanwhile, adventure tourism operator Experience Co, which produced a net loss of $4.3m for the full year, believes international travel cannot be expected to return until the 2022 financial year.

“But I would be hopeful that at some point in the early part of 2022 with high vaccination rates in Australia as well as in particular markets we can resume some form of offshore travel for vaccinated people,” said Experience Co chief executive John O’Sullivan, releasing the results.

“I noted and agreed with Alan Joyce’s comments today about reopening,” said Mr O’Sullivan, the former managing director of Tourism Australia.

Meanwhile, the cruise industry said on Thursday it hoped to resume limited domestic-only cruises within an Australian bubble once 70 per cent of Australians are vaccinated.

Cruise industry spokesman Joel Katz said Australia was now the only major cruise market in the world where governments had yet to achieve progress on a framework for cruising’s resumption.

Mr Katz said under a return to cruising framework, agreed with major cruise lines, once more than 80 per cent of adult Australians are vaccinated more extensive domestic sailings could recommence with carefully controlled trans-Tasman itineraries and other regional bubble sailings.