Coronavirus: Life support needed ‘to keep tourism ticking’

Australia’s struggling tourism ­industry will ask the Morrison government for tiered financial support once JobKeeper ends in March.

Wildlife officer Kayla Ousley at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane, where bookings have taken a hit, Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

Australia’s struggling tourism ­industry will ask the Morrison government for tiered financial support once JobKeeper ends in March to provide greater assistance to businesses decimated by the loss of international visitors.

The proposal, which is being worked on by the Tourism and Transport Forum, will put ­renewed pressure on the commonwealth to help those sectors worst affected by COVID-19 as Scott Morrison called on the states to soften the blow from ­restrictions such as snap lockdowns and border closures.

In a move that has outraged business groups, Western Australia introduced a five-day lockdown on two million people until Friday night after recording one new case of community transmission that could be the highly contagious UK strain.

“Sure, states can make decisions about what they intend to do in areas of their responsibilities, but they’re then also responsible for also dealing and mitigating the impacts of those decisions that they make. It is not a blank cheque,” the Prime ­Minister told the National Press Club in Canberra on Monday.

“You don’t rent your economy. You actually grow your economy. And that’s what we’re doing and the states have an important role to play in that. But I would agree that greater certainty about how these rules are put in place (is needed) and I’ve urged the premiers on this front, they need to keep that in mind as they put these things in place.”

There is concern within tourism that the government believes the domestic market can fill the void left by international visitors, prompting the TTF to release data showing businesses lost $81bn from both markets in just one year. International and domestic spending on tourism to the year ending in September was $71bn compared with $152bn the previous year. The decline in business ­travel has also severely affected the industry, with 8.7 million fewer overnight trips and 6.4 million fewer day trips in that time.

TTF chief executive Margy Osmond said some places in ­regional Australia, such as Byron Bay in NSW, had done well during the pandemic, but that was not an accurate reflection of what was happening across the industry.

She said the industry was working on simple, targeted ­assistance that involved several “staggered levels” of support that recognised some businesses had experienced a greater loss of revenue because of their location and reliance on international tourists.

“The loss of business or percentage of your business that might be from international visitors might therefore open up a different sort of (support) system,” Ms Osmond said.

“Places like far north Queensland that have always had the bulk of their revenue come from international tourists, for many of them it’ll be 70 per cent (of their market). If you look at major ­attractions at places like Sydney — BridgeClimb, Luna Park — they might have 60 to 70 per cent of visitation that is international. There needs to be a specially tailored payroll support mechanism for this industry, as well as a range of other support mechanisms, because otherwise we will end up with an industry that is less than a third of the size that it’s been before in terms of full-term positions.”

Former Tourism Australia boss John O’Sullivan said the best way to stop the travel industry asking for government help was to create a recovery plan.

Now chief executive of adventure tourism operator Experience Co, he said overseas visitors ­accounted for 65 per cent of the company’s revenue before COVID-19 through activities such as skydiving, reef and island tours. Although the number of domestic tourists has increased, Mr O’Sullivan said they, like hundreds of other operators, were keen to see a plan for the staggered return of international visitors. “It’s easy to shut things down and keep them closed,” he said.

“The strategic challenge is around how do you start to open things back up again, and that is where I would personally love to see the conversation turn to.”

For Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane, the prospect of another year without international visitors and with sudden state border closures was concerning. “Because of the constant care and maintenance required for wildlife, sanctuary grounds and plantations, Lone Pine has been unable to reduce staff resources during this downtime by more than 18 per cent,” she said.

“Without inbound tourism, we’re expecting a repeat of 2020 with a reduction in bookings of around 70 per cent.”