PORT MACQUARIE, Australia (Reuters) – For Carol Curry, manager of Marina Holiday Park, 330 km north of Sydney, the long Easter weekend and school holidays should be a big end to the tourist season after a year due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Instead, she sloshes through the mud to reach cabins destroyed by flooding after heavy rains hit Australia’s east coast earlier this month and is trying to contact guests to cancel bookings.

“The park went under, as did all of our reservation books and computers and the like. So it was a challenge,” Curry told Reuters at Waterfront Park, which she has looked after for five years.

“We actually had guests checking in last night, so unfortunately they had to go elsewhere.”

Tourism is an important contributor to the Australian economy. It generated around A $ 61 billion (USD 47 billion) in 2018/19 and employed around 5% of the country’s workforce, according to Tourism Australia.

The sector was hit hard when Australia effectively sealed its international borders to protect against COVID-19 early last year, while a series of internal border closings to contain outbreaks compounded the pain.

With a loosening of internal restrictions earlier this year, operators were prepared for a peak holiday season ahead of the slower winter months as devastating floods on the east coast dashed their hopes.

At nearby Stoney Aqua Park, which offers camping and water skiing on a now largely destroyed obstacle course, co-owner Anissa Manton said she has made significant financial losses.

“We were fully booked,” she said. “We were looking forward to a great season.”

Manton said she was told her insurance policy does not cover flood damage and the park will now need six months to be cleaned up.

In the meantime, the pain for tourism is likely to continue as a new COVID-19 outbreak in the northern state of Queensland, a popular vacation destination, puts Easter vacation plans on hold for thousands of visitors.

($ 1 = 1.3060 Australian dollars)

Reporting by Stefica Nicol Bikes; Letter from Colin Packham; Arrangement by Richard Pullin

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