Tourism suffers $6b vacation lockdown loss

Greater Sydney’s two-week lockdown, which covers NSW’s entire school vacation, is expected to cost Australia’s ailing tourism industry more than $ 6 billion.

The Tourism and Transport Forum says the industry will struggle to survive further lockdowns and urges the federal government to consider subsidies and urgently increase vaccine adoption rates.

It estimates the recent COVID-19 outbreak and border restrictions imposed on Sydney and NSW residents will devastate mid-year school holidays for travel companies, with spending estimated at $ 6.3 billion nationwide will sink.

Forum chief Margy Osmond says NSW’s tourism sector will lose $ 2.1 billion in business – or $ 153 million a day – nearly a third of the total nationally projected losses for the holiday season.

It is the third consecutive school break that a COVID outbreak has forced a lockdown in a capital city.

“While health remains a top priority in managing COVID-19 … I’m not sure how much longer we can survive while this lack of certainty persists,” Ms Osmond said Monday.

The recent outbreak is evidence of the importance of speeding up the vaccination program, she said.

“The tourism industry continues to suffer from a lack of international travel and Australians’ confidence in the domestic travel market and vacation planning is diabolical, making it very difficult for companies in our industry to stay afloat,” said Ms. Osmond.

TTF data showed that more than 1.7 million Australians traveled domestically during the 2019 school holidays, but the Sydney lockdown is predicted to drop that number by 73 percent – to around 460,000 travelers.

Australia now has outbreaks in NSW, Western Australia and Queensland and the Northern Territory resulting in lockdowns, tightened restrictions and border closings.

This situation confirmed that the federal government’s decision to end Jobkeeper’s wage subsidy – especially for the tourism industry – in March was “somewhat short-sighted,” Ms. Osmond said.

“You need to look very seriously now into another form of ongoing support for the tourism sector to make sure we get through the other side of the pandemic,” she said.