Tourism sector facing a dire summer holiday season

Only 1 in 10 Australians say they plan to leave their hometown for the Christmas holidays while more than half say they are unlikely to travel at all.

Audrey Wilkinson, Pokolbin in the Hunter Valley region. Picture: Escape

Only 1 in 10 Australians say they plan to leave their hometown for the Christmas holidays, and more than half say they are unlikely to travel at all over the next six months, foreshadowing a dire summer season for the nation’s tourist sector.

Amid fears international travel could be closed off until the middle of next year, a survey conducted for the Council of Small Business has found domestic tourism is likely to be very subdued as well.

“Christmas is often the busiest time of year for tourist operators and accommodation providers so this data is really worrying for them” said Council of Small Business President Peter Strong. “In those states where it is possible to get out and travel, I would strongly encourage people to Go Local First and take even a long weekend to give small tourist operators an early Christmas present.”

The research, undertaken by CT Group for the Council, also found Queenslanders were the most likely to say they would travel interstate or intrastate and South Australians the least.

“Tourist towns are among the places doing it toughest from shutdowns all over the country and are overrepresented in JobKeeper data, making this data all the more concerning,” Mr Strong said.

More than three quarters of the 2000 respondents to the survey said they hadn’t made any accommodation or travel bookings.

“With no international tourists, and with most of the country keeping interstate tourists out, it is so important for people to get out and experience what they’ve got in their own back yards to support small operators,” Mr Strong said.

The latest set of national accounts released last week confirmed the accommodation and food services sector was the worst hit by the shutdowns in the second quarter, shrinking by 39 per cent.

Speaking to Sky’s Business Weekend on Sunday, UTS economist Warren Hogan said border restrictions were having a major impact on economic activity.

“There’s clearly a tourism story here and it’s significant; people actually don’t do a lot of holidaying in their own state,” he added.

Professor Hogan said the latest GDP figures, which showed the economy shrank 7 per cent in the second quarter and confirmed the economy had entered a recession, also revealed significant “pent up demand” among households.

In July top consulting house McKinsey exploded the idea that tourism, the nation’s fourth-largest export industry, would be insulated by the global travel freeze because Australians spent more on travel overseas than foreigners spent here.

If Australians took the same amount of leave and substituted all of their international trips with domestic holidays, only two-thirds of the total tourism spend would be replaced, the analysis found, as on average domestic holidays are significantly cheaper per day.

The tourism sector sustained more than 900,000 jobs last year but faces the loss of nearly $40bn — almost a quarter of its total income — with the closure of Australia’s international borders