Tourism sector begs for lockdown support

Australia’s Golden Triangle has become more of a Bermuda triangle, as visitors disappear en masse from locked down cities.

Melbourne Airport will see just two flights a day from locked down Brisbane and Sydney over the weekend. Normally there would be dozens. Picture: William West/AFP

Australia’s “golden triangle” of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane has become more of a Bermuda triangle for tourism operators, as visitors vanish from the locked-down cities and surrounds.

A mere two flights will operate on Saturday on what is normally Australia’s busiest route – Sydney-Melbourne – and just one flight will connect Brisbane and Sydney.

Services between Melbourne and Brisbane will be just as sparse, with two on Saturday and three on Sunday, compared to 20 return flights a day in May.

Hotels and restaurants are doing it just as tough, with only one in seven rooms filled in the Sydney CBD last week, and just one in four in Melbourne, according to hospitality analytics firm STR.

Despite having no Covid cases, Canberra hotels recorded a 21 per cent occupancy rate last week, with the figure tipped to sink even lower next week.

Restaurant and Catering Association CEO Wes Lambert said the impact on members was enormous, with the locked-down areas accounting for 81 per cent of all restaurant, cafe and catering ­venues in the entire country.

He said that collectively, they were missing out on $78m of revenue a day, with the weekend’s losses likely to run to $234m.

“That’s revenue that is lost forever. Even demand for takeaway has dried up because of the fear around the Delta strain,” Mr Lambert said.

“(Restaurants) are saying their takeaway orders are a pittance of what they were under the Alpha strain.

“The fear is becoming overwhelming.”

Although many venues were hanging on in the hope vaccination rates would improve, Mr Lambert expected an Australian Bureau of Statistics report due in December to show a 5-10 per cent drop in the number of restaurants and cafes.

“For-lease signs are appearing faster than ever before,” he said.

Tourism Accommodation Australia chief executive Michael Johnson said hotels faced a long road to recovery after a difficult 18 months.

He said hotels were suffering “big time” and many were closed up and down the east coast.

“We’ve been shut down before and opened up again. The difficulty is when you’re coming back from zero it takes almost 100 days for the market to recover,” Mr Johnson said.

“Given the fact Sydney may not open up again until September, maybe even October, then it’s going to be a long time before we get back to even 50 per cent.”

Like the broader tourism industry, Mr Johnson said he was looking to government “to find ways and means to recover” in the form of some ongoing financial assistance beyond the Covid disaster relief payment.

“We won’t come out of this being able to trade as normal,” he said. “We’re going to come out with restrictions such as caps on numbers, so that will further delay the return to any sort of financial viability.”

Despite the severe impact of the Covid response along the eastern seaboard, Accor Pacific was supportive of “snap lockdowns”.

The hotel and apartment operator had been able to keep its 400 properties open throughout Australia and New Zealand, and CEO Simon McGrath said the hard and fast approach to Covid outbreaks led to better control of the virus.

However, he said longer-term lockdowns caused great distress for people’s livelihoods.

“We would like to see measures that allow internal movement within states,” said Mr McGrath.

Destination Gold Coast CEO Patricia O’Callaghan said much of the industry was in survival mode.

“JobSaver or a similar wage-subsidy initiative … would be the most effective support measure.”