Tourism is being left behind by the Morrison Government as it spruiks ‘recovery’ in the middle of Australia’s deepest recession in a century.
New national visitor survey results data, released today by Tourism Research Australia, shows the sector lost another $4.1 billion in September alone.
This is the worst month on record since May, demonstrating that tourism is clearly still being hit extremely hard by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The sector has lost $36.1 billion this year from declining domestic tourism revenue alone, let alone the huge losses from international visitor revenue.
This is not news to the Morrison Government.
They know the sector is haemorrhaging jobs, with 136,500 Australians losing their jobs in tourism in the 12 months to June.
They know the sector was disproportionately impacted by the bushfires and COVID-19 compared to other parts of the economy.
They know that our $45.4 billion international tourism has been flat-lining for nine months.
Despite this, the Morrison Government continues to fail this critical industry, which over one million Australians rely on for their livelihoods.
JobKeeper left out many tourism employees, even before it was cut back and won’t help anyone after it’s wound up at the end of March next year.
Support for travel agents was a long-overdue step but serious questions remain as to whether a one-off payment is going to be enough to help agents who have been without income for most of this year.
At the same time, many wholesalers and operators have missed out on any support.
The Morrison Government must urgently deliver a clear plan for supporting the entire sector through this crisis, to prevent hundreds of thousands more jobs being lost and ensure businesses survive to drive our national economic recovery into the future.