Coronavirus: ‘Hard line on borders risks travel devastation’

Tourism operators have expressed dismay at the prospect of border restrictions remaining in place for months.

A surfer at Surfers Paradise beach in Queensland. Picture: Tertius Pickard

Tourism operators have expressed dismay at the prospect of border restrictions remaining in place for months, putting the $80bn domestic industry at risk.

Australian Tourism Industry Council Simon Westaway said many of the organisation’s 10,000 members were “stressed and frustrated” by the shutdown, which he estimated was costing the industry $8bn-$10bn a month.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk suggested on Monday the state’s borders could stay closed until September, dashing operators’ hopes of a kickstart during the July school holidays.

The Queensland government will review border regulations monthly, but Mr Westaway described the Premier’s proposition as “completely out of step” with the national cabinet, which indicated a July 10 start to interstate travel.

While federal Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham has urged states to relax border controls, Western Australia and South Australia have also shown an unwillingness to lift restrictions until after winter.

Geoff York, acting chief executive and group director of luxury hotel group Crystalbrook Collection, said he was disappointed with the Queensland Premier’s “overly cautious” approach, adding that the state’s tourism industry was in “a world of pain”. Crystalbrook has a $540m Cairns portfolio that includes three new hotels, the Port Douglas marina and a luxury lodge. Its latest property, Flynn hotel, was due to open on March 31 but has been mothballed and of the 550 staff employed in March, only 50 remain on the books.

“I think we need to balance the interests of the economy and tourism business up there (in far north Queensland) against the risk of several cases of coronavirus,” Mr York said. The No 1 priority for recovery in the predominantly fly-in Cairns market was getting planes back in the air. “It’s all about aviation policy and flight capacity,” Mr York said.

Simon McGrath, chief operating officer for Accor hotels, which has more than 380 properties ­nationwide, said a delay in opening borders would cause “devastation”. Accor had managed to keep most of its properties operating, retaining about 60 per cent of its workforce thanks to the JobKeeper scheme. “The opening of borders will be the only time you’ll have an economically sustainable (tourism) economy,” he said.

However, Hamilton Island chief executive Glenn Bourke supported Ms Palaszczuk’s strategy as “realistic and achievable”.

He said rushing back into business sooner risked a stop-start scenario in which hotels were forced to scale back operations again if a spike in coronavirus infections occurred. “Opening once at full gusto is much better than opening in a very minor or half-cocked way,” he said.