Tourism Industry Pressures States To Follow NSW And Victoria's Example On Border Reopening

Whilst New South Wales (and soon Victoria) reopen their international borders they still can’t get into Queensland, Western Australia or South Australia inciting pressure from the tourism industry. 

CEO of the Tourism and Transport Forum, Margy Osmond says the state governments need to stop hurting tourism and commit to opening up sooner.

“If we’ve got any chance to have of getting international tourists back you’re hoping to come to lovely Sydney, of course, but you’re also hoping to go to the Great Barrier Reef or Uluru or the Barossa Valley so we need certainty around those borders for people to be planning those long-distance trips and for airlines to make those capacities possible,” she said.

Queensland won’t be loosening restrictions until 70% of the population is fully vaccinated and quarantine for international arrivals won’t be scrapped until December 17 when the government anticipates the population will be 90% fully vaccinated. 

WA Premier Mark McGowan holds a notoriously strict view on the Covid outbreaks and has not indicated when WA borders will reopen to Victoria or NSW. 

"We could drop [NSW] to 'high', which still has a very restricted number of people coming into Western Australia … but they're about to open international borders without any requirement for quarantine and we just have to monitor that," he said.

More certainty has been provided by South Australia which is expected to reopen borders in about three weeks time when the vaccination rate reaches 80%. 

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