Coronavirus Australia: Tourism chiefs say cabin fever will fuel local travel boom once restrictions are lifted

When travel and border restrictions ease, there’s a bucket list of domestic destinations set to fill with over-it isolated Aussies.

John and Judi Clark, owners of luxury short stay accomodation the Coach House near Cygnet in southern Tasmania. Picture: Peter Mathew

From luxury resort owners to the kingpins of major travel agency networks, the nation’s fragment­ed tourism operators have united on one front — they expect an unprecedented boom in domestic tourism, both budget and luxury, once the COVID-19 enforced travel restrictions are lifted.

Stretching from resorts in the shadow of Uluru to budget hotels in Victoria’s beachside Lorne, tourism bosses anticipate capturing the $65bn spent by about 10 million Australian travellers who holiday offshore every year, once the government lifts its domestic travel bans.

Locally, they expect intrastate tourism to fire up within the next few months, followed by interstate tourism. And all agree that international travel will not recommence until at least January.

Some argue that the reopening of domestic tourism will largely ­depend on the airlines and how many passengers they can attract.

Even before the travel bans hit, local resort owners were recording a spike in bookings from wealthy Australian travellers who would normally head to Europe to escape the southern hemisphere winter, but were instead­ heading to north Queensland.

“Before we got closed down due to COVID-19, we got quite a lot of bookings for Orpheus Island from Australian residents who didn’t want to go to Italy,” said Chris Morris, owner of the ultra-luxury Great Barrier Reef island.

“That will be the case (when the travel bans lift) because people will be uncomfortable going to Europe and the US. That is what we are expecting.”

But when will intrastate, interstate and overseas travel restrictions start lifting?

Mr Morris, who controls a major tourism portfolio of 15 pubs, as well as Orpheus Island, a fleet of helicopters in north Queensland and a casino in Townsville, said Queensland might come back sooner than other states. “But whether there is going to be a boom all depends on the airlines — it will take a while,” he said.

Airlines vital

That’s the big question, according to the head of Australia’s largest­ hotel and resort chain, French-owned giant Accor, Simon McGrath. He expects to attract­ both the budget and ­luxury traveller.

Mr McGrath, who has had to tem­porarily close 60 of his 400-strong network of hotels and resorts­ in Australia and New Zealand, anticipates intrastate travel bans will start lifting by next month or June, closely followed by the lifting of interstate, then international bans, maybe next year.

The well-heeled will head to NZ luxury resorts such as Queenstown.

He expects the well-heeled Aussie who typically ventures offshore will switch to local destin­ations such as Broome and north Queensland, and Queenstown and Christchurch in New Zealand. The typical Bali traveller will convert­ to the delights of Margaret River or the Gold Coast.

“A lot of luxury destinations will benefit,” said Mr McGrath, predicting that, given the un­preced­­ented pent-up demand to holiday­, even budget travellers will head away from home. In Sydney­, they might do a camping trip to the NSW central coast, or Melbourne residents could take a self-drive trip to Lorne.

“Statistically, Australians will spend. They will come out of this coronavirus lockdown relatively confident. And the Gold Coast will really benefit,” he said.

“The luxury traveller will go to places in Australia they have never been, and there will be a patriotic call to arms to help the tourism industry.”

‘People are bursting to go anywhere’

Helloworld chief executive Andrew Burnes, who operates a network of more than 1000 travel agencies across Australia and New Zealand, reckons that come September or October the domesti­c tourism sector will start to fire up again.

“People are just bursting to go anywhere. Here in Victoria you can’t even go to the golf course, you can’t go fishing, you can’t stand on the rocks and throw a bait in,” Mr Burnes said.

“When intrastate tourism is opened up, there will be a huge boom for a lot of regional destin­ations and the natural flow of cross-border tourism will follow.

“At some point people in NSW will be allowed to go to Queensland. I don’t see that happening until September or October, and I would like to hope that New Zealanders­ and Australians will be able to go between the two countries by the end of the year and also certain countries in the South Pacific. There will be bilateral arrangement­s between countries.

“In the absence of not being able to go to the northern hemisphere, I have spoken to a lot of people who are saying they have never been to Broome and now they want to go, same with Uluru.

“There’s a whole bucketload of people talking about these Aust­ralian destinations — they will be among the first destinations ­people will be able to go.”

Asked where he would go when he was able to venture out of his Melbourne home, Mr Burnes said: “Anywhere.”

Empty parking bays at Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Picture David Curl.

Australia’s largest private own­er­ of hotels, Jerry Schwartz, reckons once the travel bans are lifted it will be six to eight weeks before travel recommences. “People­ want to get out of their houses and spend money,” Dr Schwartz said from his Crowne Plaza resort in the NSW Hunter Valley.

In the Northern Territory Grant Hunt, chief executive of Voyages Indigenous Tourism, which owns five resorts around Uluru, said there would be some ­easing of restrictions in July and he is hopeful domestic travel is back in business by August. “International travel will come back in the first quarter of next year, but I think New Zealand will do a deal and be back in Australia sooner than next year,” Mr Hunt said.

Tourism Australia managing director Phillipa Harrison agreed that domestic travel restrictions would be lifted before international travel restrictions.

“Australians spent more than $80bn on overnight trips last year and more than $70bn on day trips,” Ms Harrison said. “So our focus will start with domestic ­travel, where we’ll be strongly encouraging Australians to holiday at home before welcoming visitors from our key international markets­. While domestic tourism alone certainly can’t fill the vacuum of lost international business, more Australians travelling domestica­lly has the potential to deliver much-needed revenue to our industry.

“International will form a critical part of the tourism restart and recovery, but will likely be further down the track. We just don’t know when international restrictions will start to be lifted, nor how the process of restoring inter­national travel will play out.”

Meanwhile, skydiving and Great Barrier Reef boat operator John O’Sullivan, chief executive of Experience Co, said the 10 million Australians who normally go overseas annually would visit Cairns, the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru and even partake in sky­diving over the Melbourne CBD.

Regional tourism boom

Experience Co’s market cap has plummeted from $106m to $54m due to the virus but nevertheless Mr O’Sullivan, the former boss of Tourism Australia, reckons­ there will be a boom in regional­ tourism once the governm­ent lifts the regulations.

“These 10 million Australians have been staying home suppressing the virus and they are going to want to go on holiday,” he says.

Orpheus Island Lodge, a secluded island retreat off the coast of Townsville. Picture: Supplied

Gavin Smith, head of the giant US-­listed Royal Caribbean Australia, says the embattled cruise sector knows it has to regain­ trust.

“We understand cruising has been knocked around by recent events and it’s our job to regain the trust of Australians and we look forward to doing so,” Mr Smith said. “If everything comes together as we hope, then we will be able to offer cruise holidays from Australia towards the end of the year.

“Irrespective of the challenges presented by (Carnival-owned) Ruby Princess, we will be looking at what is appropriate for the Australian market. We must be sensitive to community expectations. That is most important, to be able to demonstrate … we are able to responsibly offer safe and secure holidays to all Australians.”