Domestic holidays hold key to plugging tourism gap

AUSTRALIA’S tourism industry could ride out the international border closure if everyone who travelled overseas in 2019 spent half the cost of those trips here this year.

Commonwealth Bank analysis shows Australia is set to lose $20 billion from foreign tourists if the border remains closed until the end of 2020.

But nearly twice that amount will stay onshore as Australians are unable to jet away and splash the cash on overseas holidays during the pandemic.

The bank’s head of Australian

economics, Gareth Aird, said if jetsetters redirected the money destined for overseas trips this year towards domestic holidays then the financial hit from the international border closure would be “minimal”.

“There will certainly be businesses that are negatively impacted and we do not wish to gloss over that fact,” Mr Aird said.

“But from a pure level of expenditure in the economy, if Australians can spend half of what they would have spent overseas in 2019 domestically then the gap is plugged.”

He also said regional Australia

could benefit from a domestic holiday surge as city dwellers took to the bush.

“It is likely to be bigger cities that have been reliant on overseas tourists that will be more negatively impacted,” he said.

Despite the overall damage of the border closures likely to be far less than expected this year, businesses that relied on foreign tourists would be hurt.

“The message therefore for policymakers becomes an easy one – if you were going to have an overseas holiday this year then please take one domestically and support Australian businesses,” he said.