CPMaverick

A strong incentive? I don't see it. Yes, of course, AU would love that tourism money back. But not at the expense of the greater economy. That's why it was shut down in the first place. There is a much stronger incentive to keep the country closed to tourism except from countries deemed a low or near zero risk.

Your comparison is incorrect. It's true that the GDP contribution of tourism as a total is A$60B (3.1% of GDP). But 2.1% of GDP is Domestic Tourism (42.9B), only 0.9% is International Tourism (17.9B).

Perhaps you got your A$45B from International tourist consumption 2017-18. That went up to $47B in 2018/2019. However domestic tourist consumption was $87B. So use the same method if you are going to compare numbers. Make sure if you are comparing tourism sectors, that all the numbers come from the same source. My sources are below.
Source: https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]?OpenDocument
See Table 2: https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subs...12.2019&Latest

Of those visitors, about 15% are from NZ and about 15% from China. About 9% each for US and UK.
Source: https://www.budgetdirect.com.au/trav...tatistics.html

Australia would much rather keep the virus out, and keep 99.1% of the domestic economy going, than risk everything they've sacrificed for now for an area that is only 0.9% of GDP. Especially if they can open up to NZ. NZ + Domestic tourism would be enough to keep the industry afloat, especially if more kiwis visit and Australians do more travel inside the country than usual.

bensyd

Even more perspective: Australians can't go overseas. Australian tourists overseas spend more than foreign tourists spend in Australia. It's not a tough gap to fill. We're already planning a few domestic holidays. And seriously, like really seriously, the costs of this pandemic ($250b and counting) and rolling lockdowns and stressed health systems and people dying unnecessarily dwarf what international tourists bring in. I don't see any incentive to open the borders for the foreseeable future.

IMOA

Yep, that’s exactly my take. We’ve started to plan short trips to all the places in Aus which we’ve always said ‘we really should go to...’ and haven’t yet because we were holidaying overseas. Apart from my girlfriend maybe (very maybe) heading back to JB for Chinese New Year we expect our next international holiday will be Japan in October. 2021. There’s going to be a lot of short breaks to Tasmania, Adelaide hills, Margaret river and I think I’m finally going to get to Uluru. For someone that usually spends 6-9 months a year overseas that’s a lot of money that is going to be staying home.

Often1

The key warning, if one must book now, is not to book non-refundable arrangements for air and ground. As air schedules settle down, schedules will become more firm and there will be less of a reason for carriers to cancel and thus generate refunds. As Covid waiver policies expire and are either not renewed or tightened, there is not even a guarantee of a credit if the flight operates and one is not on it.

At a minimum, having funds tied up is a bad thing because it means that alternatives may be out of reach.

Granite64

I'm in the same situation, bought that CDG-AKL *A J fare in March (€1k R/T, just before the 'corona storm') when the borders were not closed yet for a trip to AKL via PVG in July. I was hoping the situation would improve, but of course health is more important than travel. Now hoping at least one of my flights will be cancelled so that EC261 will kick in and that I can change my flight for free.

bensyd

I'm trying to work out what JB is?

If you visit Uluru, and you've got the time, drive. It's a great drive, you'll see non-tourist outback and it makes arriving to Uluru even more spectacular than just flying in.

Plus you like driving.

IMOA

Johor Bahru, we usually go back for a week in JB/Singapore to see girlfriends family then spend another 1-2 weeks travelling around SE asia.

For uluru we might split the difference, fly into alice and hire a car from there so we can also do kings canyon, olga's etc. I've done the drive out from Sydney to camerons corner and birdsville about 30 years ago camping on the side of the road and not sure I could do it again with the way speed limits and other rules are enforced these days.

nancypants

top tip, make sure you check the KMs included as it usually doesn’t cover much. The tourist office in Alice Springs includes unlimited KMs with all their rentals I believe