Coronavirus: Easter booking boom borders on a travel boon

A surge in Easter bookings and the lifting of domestic travel restrictions has returned the number of travellers to pre-­pandemic levels.

Melbourne couple Kareen Dhaliwal and Dimitris Litras enjoy Sydney’s sunshine and sights from the Spirit of Migloo on Easter Sunday. Picture: Jane Dempster

A surge in Easter holiday bookings — and the lifting of domestic travel restrictions — has returned the number of travellers at Australia’s two largest airlines to pre-­pandemic levels, in a boon for the embattled tourism industry.

Virgin Australia, newly re-emerged from a pandemic-­induced administration, recorded 71,000 fare sales on Thursday — the largest number in its two-­decade history — while Qantas said the number of domestic tickets sold had almost returned to Easter 2019 figures.

Flights between Sydney and Melbourne, Hobart, Adelaide, Hamilton Island, Cairns, the Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast were particularly strong, Virgin told The Australian.

South Australia became the latest state to reopen its hard border to Brisbane on Saturday after the Northern Territory lifted ­restrictions two days earlier. Tasmania and Victoria have some ­restrictions on “high-risk” premises and Brisbane local councils, while Western Australia has stricter limits on all Queensland.

Uncertainty on state border closures was one reason Melbourne couple Dimitris Litras and Kareen Dhaliwal decided on Sydney for an Easter long weekend holiday. They spent the day revelling in the balmy Easter Sunday sun as the Spirit of Migloo made its way around Sydney ­Harbour.

“We’re not scared of what (NSW Premier) Gladys Berejik­lian will do, but Queensland is a risk because you just don’t know what their Premier is going to do,” Mr Litras said.

“And you don’t want to go to Perth because they’ll just close the border.

“Border lockdowns are something on everyone’s mind as well when you travel … would you be in a position where when you come back, you have to be quarantined?” Ms Dhaliwal added.

The tourism and accommo­dation sector, which was bracing for losses over the Easter week of more than $1.7bn even before last week’s outbreak of the coronavirus at Brisbane’s Princess Alexandra Hospital sent the city into lockdown, reported high occupancy levels at popular destinations.

Dean Long, the chief executive of Accommodation Association, said the industry had not “had a captive audience of 24 million people for a very long time” and bookings at leisure destin­ations including Byron Bay and Uluru had returned to 90 per cent for the rest of the year.

“But for many, Easter is the end of happy days. It’s the end of when people go ‘It’s holiday time’. It starts to become harder to have some of these getaways,” he said.

“We don’t know what consumer patterns will be on that.

“No one’s booking ahead of time because no one knows when the border will be closed.”

Despite domestic flights on the increase, accommodation bookings in Queensland were down 47 per cent over Easter compared to 2019. The end of Greater Brisbane’s three-day lockdown saw bookings improve just 0.7 per cent, industry figures show.

Tourism and Transport Forum chief executive Margy Osmond said once school holidays ended, a lot of attractions would return to 30 per cent of their normal business with no international border reopening.

“While I think there might be some hay made while the sun shines over the next little while, it’s by no means a solution for the industry and we’re a long way off being out of the woods,” she said.

“One long weekend does not a summer make.”

Australian Tourism and Industry Council members reported bookings over the six weeks from March to the end of the Easter school holidays were 25 per cent down compared to the same period in 2019.

Simon Westaway, the organisation’s executive director, said states should make clear they would stop introducing snap lockdowns once a certain number of people were vaccinated.

“The concern for us and the industry moving forward is we’re going to come into these cooler months on the eastern seaboard — this is a really important recovery time,” he said.

“State and territory governments that pull the trigger on lockdowns, even with a vaccine rollout, it’ll impact recovery.”

Qantas and Virgin have recorded booming ticket sales — driven by the federal government’s subsidised routes — over the Easter break. Virgin said the most popular of those routes, which are half-priced as an incentive to travel, were from Melbourne to the Gold Coast, from Maroochydore and Adelaide to Melbourne and from the Gold Coast and Cairns to Sydney.

“The overwhelming response we’ve received for Easter holiday bookings as well as our half-price fares on Thursday demonstrates loud and clear that Australians are ready to get back in the air and travel, and are a positive sign for the aviation and tourism sectors as they look to recover from the impacts of COVID-19,” a Virgin spokesman said on Sunday.

Qantas, in a statement, told The Australian that it was “fantastic to see this kind of confidence coming back to the domestic travel market.

“We are confident that the vaccine rollout will help keep borders open permanently, and buzzing airport terminals over Easter shows that Aussies are ready to travel again,” the statement read.

Restaurant and Catering chief executive West Lambert reported a “tremendously busy Easter weekend” at cafes but said the hospitality industry, which is heavily reliant on tourism, was still feeling the pinch of a two-speed economy.

“You have the CBDs and tourist areas that have a larger percentage of international tourists, they will remain down until we all return to the office or international borders reopen, which won’t be until 2022,” he said.

“We expect until the vaccine is fully rolled out, many Australians will make less long-term plans for events and travel, as so many have been burned.

“It’s certainly going to slowly and steadily improve but improving is hinged very closely on no more lockdowns or the vaccine rollout and business and consumer confidence.”