Tourism to pay dearly for botched vaccine rollout

The multi-billion dollar tourism sector in Queensland must ditch resuscitation plans and business confidence will wane after the federal government abandons setting targets for introducing COVID-19 vaccines, economists and industry leaders said.

In a late afternoon address on social media, Prime Minister Scott Morrison redoubled the government’s move to abandon vaccination goals, saying, “COVID writes its own rules, you can’t set the agenda.”

He also said Australia’s borders would “remain closed as long as we have to but only as long as we have to”.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has doubled the government’s move to abandon vaccination goals. Image: Julian Andrews

Economists and tourism industry leaders have warned of the lack of a timetable, which means there is no way to plan when international borders will reopen. This is another big setback for the international tourism market, which brings in $ 45 billion annually for the Australian economy.

Qantas, which set its goal in February of resuming international flights to meet its target for the vaccine launch in October, is now warning against “monitoring” recent developments even though it has not changed its plans.

The international tourism market, valued at $ 6 billion to the Queensland economy in 2019, will be the sector hardest hit by the vaccine roll-out program.

Adele Labine-Romain, director and partner of the tourism sector at Deloitte Access Economics, said regions like Cairns and the Gold Coast, which depend on international tourism, are significantly exposed.

Alan Joyce, CEO of Qantas, and Jayne Hrdlicka, CEO of Virgin, during a press conference in Qantas Hangar 96 at Sydney Airport in Sydney, NSW. Pictured: Dylan Coker

“Every month (lateness) is billions of dollars (for the tourism industry),” she said.

Margy Osmond, executive director of the national tourism and transport forum for top organizations, said the industry’s survival after JobKeeper relies on the certainty of state borders and the rapid and efficient introduction of the vaccine.

“The federal government needs to rethink how it supports our industry. We now need a replacement for JobKeeper,” she said.

The Australia Institute’s chief economist, Dr. Richard Denniss said the decision not to set a timeline or target for vaccine roll-out means companies “have no idea how to plan for the future.”

“When you realize how big the tourism industry and the overseas student market are, it’s really bad for a wide range of small and large businesses,” he said.

“The fact that there is no goal to aim at means that not even plans can be made.

“There are all kinds of investments that won’t happen without even looking at a schedule.”

Professor Paul Kelly, chief medical officer, said Monday the goal is to have all healthcare, geriatric and disabled care workers vaccinated by mid-2021.

But he refused to release government projections on how long it will be before all Australians get their first vaccine after the The AstraZeneca vaccine was no longer preferred for those under the age of 50.

Prof. Kelly also refused to say how many doses of the Pfizer vaccine Australia had received to date, only that 40 million would have arrived by the end of 2021.

The latest vaccination data shows that a total of 1.17 million vaccine doses have been administered in Australia, of which 109,314 were administered as part of the Queensland vaccination program.

Originally published as Tourism has to pay dearly to introduce botched vaccines