Gold Coast tourism take in tatters as borders stay shut

The Gold Coast’s tourism industry will lose nearly $1bn as border closures lay waste to holiday travel.

‘It’s a nightmare for the business, our staff and their families,’ says Gold Coast Watersports co-owner Ky Parker. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

The Gold Coast’s tourism industry will lose nearly $1bn on pre-pandemic earnings for the September quarter as border closures lay waste to holiday travel, with no end in sight to political bickering between holdout states and Scott Morrison.

The outlook to be released on Monday by industry group Destination Gold Coast will buttress a renewed plea by the Prime Minister to Queensland and Western Australia to fall in line with his Covid recovery plan and open up on hitting 80 per cent full vaccination.

Visitor expenditure on the Gold Coast this quarter is forecast to be down nearly $1bn compared with the same period in 2019, with occupancy rates at 40 per cent these school holidays. This suggests the plight of tourism operators on the Queensland beach strip is becoming more acute as lockdowns in Melbourne and Sydney wear on, locking out their prime interstate markets after the virus put paid to international travel last year.

The take this month on the Gold Coast is predicted to be $326m less than in September 2019, a 68 per cent slump.

Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles. Picture: John Gass

“I’d believe that,” said Gold Coast Watersports co-owner Ky Parker, whose jet ski, parasail and flyboard hire business in Surfers Paradise is trading 90 per cent below pre-Covid levels.

“We are getting absolutely smashed. Usually we’d have five instructors on but today there’s bookings for only one. It’s a nightmare for the business, our staff and their families.”

Mr Morrison’s call to recalcitrant states to “get on with it” and commit to unrestricted domestic travel at 80 per cent full vaccination was slapped down on Sunday by Deputy Queensland Premier Steven Miles after he reported the daily Covid case number: zero.

Renewing his feud with the Prime Minister, Mr Miles said the double-jab benchmark was one of several considerations for reopening the closed border with NSW and Victoria. He refused to say what it would take for Queensland to lift the restrictions. “What we’ve said is it will depend on what the situation is here and what the situation is (in NSW and Victoria) in terms of the number cases, number of hospitalisations, number of people in ICU and number of people vaccinated,” he said.

“So there is more than one variable. I know the Prime Minister, with his constant attempts to distract from his own failings, wants to boil this down to a single number but it is not that simple and it is misleading people to tell them that it should be that simple.”

From the US, Mr Morrison insisted there was no reason “why Australians should be kept from seeing each other” once 80 per cent double-vaccination had been achieved. Pressed on Queensland’s refusal to honour the target, he told the Seven Network: “There comes a time when you’ve got to honour the arrangement you’ve made with the Australian people, and that is when you get to 80 per cent vaccination. It’s very clear that you can start opening up.”

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said “I certainly hope so” when asked on Sunday whether he backed Mr Morrison’s expectation that borders between states would reopen once the 80 per cent full vaccination target was reached.

“But with the greatest of respect to the PM, that’s not his call. That’s a call for chief health officers, and for premiers,” he said. “And the national plan, which we are faithfully delivering, doesn’t really go to these issues. No one is locked into having borders open.”

Mounting tourism losses on the Gold Coast underline the business case for the state border to be reopened in time for Christmas.

Destination Gold Coast said the local industry generated $5.9bn in 2019, which more than halved to $2.7bn last year.

The forecast drop of about $1bn in visitor expenditure for the 2021 September quarter showed the industry was facing “some of its darkest days,” chief executive Patricia O’Callaghan said. “If we can get though the next 100 days, we can rebound exceptionally strongly. The industry has been hurting. We’ve seen support flow in from federal and state governments recently that’s going to go a long way but Covid has left a hole in the pockets of our tourism operators.” Mr Miles said: “I don’t think Queenslanders will want to let in Covid for Christmas if we don’t have to.”

As of Sunday, 50.9 per cent of Australians over 16 were double-vaccinated, according to federal Health Department figures, but the rates in Queensland (44.51 per cent) and WA (44.48 per cent) trail the jurisdictions of NSW, Tasmania and ACT.

Additional reporting: Rachel Baxendale