Michael McCormack has defended the design of the federal government’s $ 1.2 billion package in support of the Australian tourism industry, which has suffered from the shortage of tourists due to international border closings.

The program calls for 800,000 half-price airline tickets to be made available between states to boost domestic tourism between April and July.

At the start of the package on Thursday, 13 destinations were on schedule, but Townsville, Darwin and Adelaide were added within a few hours.

Now Hobart has been added and the deputy prime minister says there is potential to add more.

“This is a first list,” McCormack, who is also Secretary of Transportation, told ABC’s Insider Program on Sunday.

“Austrade has identified locations across Australia that need people to come to them.”

Mr McCormack said the government will re-examine the “demand-driven” system once the 800,000 tickets are used up.

He said these selected destinations would usually have international tourists at this time of year.

“They don’t have international tourists, we want to bring these people from Australia to these places to spend money in hotels, to spend money on tourist boat operators because every dollar spent on a plane ticket is worth $ 10 at the destination.” he said..

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