Coronavirus: Tourism demands clarity on border

Tourism and business groups say they need to know a timeline of when their markets will reopen.

tourist operators need more clarity over the reopening of Australia. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gaye Gerard

Tourism and business groups are urging Scott Morrison to provide more clarity on the reopening of the nation’s international border, as the Prime Minister treads carefully on when Australians will be able to travel overseas again.

Mr Morrison on Monday said Christmas next year was “too far away” to know whether international travel would be on the table for Australians, but said he would “certainly hope so”. The national immunisation panel’s updated advice to restrict the AstraZeneca vaccine to Australians over 60 will slow down the vaccine program in the next few weeks.

Australian Tourism Industry Council executive director Simon Westaway said Mr Morrison’s comments demonstrated there was still no timeline for Australia to reopen, which was of ongoing concern to operators.

“From where we’re sitting, it’s absolutely imperative that we get the framework and the requirements for a gradual, staged, safe reopening. That’s what is critical,” he told The Australian.

“We’ve established the trans-Tasman bubble and that’s worked effectively but we need to see that in place for other markets.”

He said it was not only tourism but business in general that needed some sense of what markets would be open, and when.

“At the moment we need more than mid-2022 out of the Treasury papers as a guidance. We need a lot more detail than that,” he said. “International travel movement will occur and the government is right to assess how that will play out. It took a year to get the New Zealand-Australia travel zone resolved so we’re saying we’ve got to get into it.

“We need to keep the pressure on the government while we have very low rates of community transmission and have an effective dialogue.”

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry acting chief executive Jenny Lambert said tourism businesses were “very frustrated” about the lack of clarity regarding reopening the international border. “They are really looking for government to provide more hope and to pursue every opportunity to reopen safely. We all want it to be safe.

“At the moment the discussion is too binary. We’re saying there are so many steps in between. Vaccination allows us to do so much more. We’re very keen to see more action in the intermediate space.”

The Weekend Australian revealed that foreign students could be used to trial a new “green light, red light” system on the international ­border, allowing in vaccinated ­arrivals who posed no health risk.

Ms Lambert said the chamber was “encouraged” by any suggestion trial arrangements be based on the risk of countries travellers are coming from.

Last month, the chamber published a four-stage proposal for reopening the international border. Under the plan, fully vaccinated Australians would be eligible to travel to medium-risk countries once at least 80 per cent of the most vulnerable – essential workers and people 70 and over – were immunised.

On their return home, quarantine periods would be reduced or travellers might only have to self-isolate until they received a negative Covid-19 test. There would be no quarantine restrictions for travellers arriving from low-risk countries such as New Zealand.

ACCI’s plan has been canvassed with Treasury, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Airline chiefs have previously spoken of the need for a timeline for reopening, with Qantas still hopeful of restarting long-haul international flights in mid-December.