Tourism industry on life support calls for surgical intervention

The decimated industry warns it will not bounce back without a wage subsidy when the international border reopens.

Dolphins at Henley Beach in South Australia.

Australia’s tourism sector could face more than 750,000 job losses by the middle of next year, as the decimated industry warns it will not bounce back without a wage subsidy when the international border reopens.

Lockdowns across swaths of Australia’s east coast have soured consumer confidence as the tourism industry prepares for a sluggish September school holiday period.

Peak body the Tourism and Transport Forum said the industry was “fading on life support” and demanded the reinstatement of the JobKeeper. The organisation has written to all federal MPs requesting they back the ­resumption of the wage subsidy- equalling $1500 a fortnight – for tourism businesses that are down more than 50 per cent of their pre-Covid turnover.

On Friday NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian flagged the state could be in lockdown until the end of October, when it is ­expected to have fully vaccinated 70 per cent of its eligible population and begin easing restrictions.

Forum chief executive Margy Osmond said NSW’s extended lockdown had significant knock-on effects for other states and territories, as it accounted for about one-third of Australia’s tourism market.

“If people from NSW don’t travel then nobody gets a holiday crowd. We are now likely to lose the September holiday period. The loss we are seeing now is just mind-boggling for the industry,” she said.

“Nationally you’ll see a loss of about $4bn across the September school holiday period.”

The body’s research found the tourism sector had lost $25.3bn last financial year. It estimated that reinstating JobKeeper for tourism businesses that have lost more than half of their pre-Covid turnover would cost $2.38bn over a six-month period.

The federal and NSW government have funded a joint business support package that provide payments to impacted businesses. But Ms Osmond said a wage subsidy was key because it kept employees connected to businesses.

“It’s a case of JobKeeper or bust,” she said. “People are leaving the industry and they’re not coming back even when we’re able to reopen again and offer jobs. So, people are making a ­career choice to go elsewhere ­because they see no future in our industry. That means we have no way of meeting demand when it does come back.”

She said “if things travel the way we think they’re going to” the industry would have lost 610,000 jobs since the beginning of the pandemic by September. And the forum predicted another 150,000 jobs could be lost before the middle of next year when the international border was scheduled to reopen.

Ms Osmond acknowledged many industries had been hit hard by the pandemic, but said the tourism sector, especially businesses catering to a mainly international market, had “effectively been in lockdown for the past 18 months”.

“Since the moment Covid began, we have been bleeding and we are now barely breathing,” she said.

She warned that when Australia did reopen its international border, the country was unlikely to see a flood of tourists because of the loss of many aviation routes.