Tourism encounters $6 billion holiday lockdown loss

Monday, June 28, 2021

The Greater Sydney two-week lockdown encompassing the entire NSW school holidays is anticipated to cost the struggling tourism of Australia almost $6 billion.

The Tourism and Transport Forum mentions that the sector will fight to take more lockdowns in a confident manner, requesting the federal government earnestly to think about subsidies and immediately boost vaccine rollout rates.

It estimates that the COVID-19 outbreak and the border restrictions on Sydney and NSW residents will destroy the mid-year school holiday period for travel firms, with spending expected to get down by $6.3 billion countrywide.

Margy Osmond, the forum chief explains that the tourism sector of NSW will lose business of more than $2.1 billion – or $153 million a day – almost one third of the total losses estimated nationally for the holiday period.

It’s the third school holidays in a row that a COVID outbreak had forced a lockdown in a capital city.

“While health remains the number one priority in the management of COVID-19 … I’m not sure how much longer we can survive while this lack of certainty continues,” Ms Osmond said on Monday.

She said that the recent outbreak was an evidence of how essential it was for the vaccination program to be fast-tracked.

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

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