Helloworld field bookings for Sunshine State as tourism returns

Helloworld has been flooded with bookings for Queensland’s hotels, flights and day tours as the tourism sector starts reviving.

Hayman Island will reopen on September 1

Travel giant Helloworld has been inundated with booking requests for Queensland’s hotels, flights and day tours as the Sunshine State’s tourism sector starts reviving under the easing of COVID-19 restrictions.

“They are booking from the Gold Coast to Port Douglas,” Helloworld chief executive Andrew Burnes said.

NSW’s Hunter Valley wine district was also popular with Sydney-siders seeking a weekend away while island holidays were finding favour with NSW and South Australian tourists who were booking Queensland’s recently renovated Hayman Island which reopens on September 1 or the nearby Hamilton Island.

“We are expecting a lot of bookings for Queensland out of NSW and South Australia and we are expecting a lot from Victoria when there’s certainty,” Mr ­Burnes told The Australian on Wednesday.

Australian and New Zealand tourists are also among the cut of international tourists allowed to visit EU countries. Visitors from 15 countries, but not the US, Russia or Brazil, are allowed to visit the EU bloc from this week in a bid to help revive Europe’s need for tourism revenues. But Aussies will still require an exit permit and a lengthy quarantine on return.

Offshore, Helloworld isn’t cou­nting on a rapid recovery for the US travel market anytime soon having just sold the ASX-listed firm’s LA-based wholesale division, Down Under Answers, to a longstanding Seattle-based client.

“The American (travel) recovery will be some time off, we sold it to long-term clients, we thought it was the smart thing to do to combine two businesses so that the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts,” Mr Burnes said.

He declined to reveal the sale price saying it was not material to Helloworld’s results.

“The sale of the US operations follows on from a management review which concluded that this operation would be better managed locally in light of current circumstances,” Helloworld added.

“The sale to Down Under Answers, which includes a long-term contract to Helloworld’s inbound divisions, presented the best opportunity for consolidation during these challenging times.”

Meanwhile, Flight Centre Travel Group has secured access to up to $117m in funding from the Bank of England’s COVID Corporate Financing Facility. The funding will be to help offset the crisis’s impacts on Flight Centre’s United Kingdom business.

The Bank of England’s COVID funding has been implemented to support short-term liquidity among firms as they work to overcome disruption caused by the virus and the restrictions in place to slow its spread. The initial notes issued under the facility will ­mature in March next year and should be capable of being extended for a further 12 months.