Unvaxxed refund doubt

STRUGGLING tourism operators say they are fielding thousands of requests for refunds from unvaccinated travellers ahead of the peak Christmas period.

But the city’s top theme parks cannot say if they will give refunds.

Operators that fall under the state government’s vaccine mandate will not be able to accept unvaccinated people from December 17, sparking debate over whether customers will be entitled to a refund.

Both Village Roadshow – which operates Movie World, Sea World and Wet‘n’Wild – and Ardent-owned Dreamworld said they would follow the vaccine mandate, but were awaiting formal health direction before confirming whether or not unvaccinated people would be offered refunds.

“We are still working through the finer details of these vaccination rules and how it will be implemented across our venues,” a Village Roadshow spokesman said.

“We will provide more information to our guests and team members once we have a clearer understanding.”

The Bulletin asked the Office of Fair Trading Queensland for clarification on whether customers were entitled to a refund, but did not receive a response.

Despite the confusion, Destination Gold Coast chief executive Patricia O’Callaghan said forward accommodation bookings suggested the Gold Coast would have a strong Christmas and New Year period through to mid-January at least.

“It has been a difficult 18 months for the tourism industry and there is wide support for the mandate, but implementation is always harder and clearly we are hearing from operators the impacts for customers, staff and visitors and that is what we are working through as an industry,” Ms O’Callaghan said.

“What is positive is that since the mandate has been announced, there has been a spike in people getting vaccinated in Queensland.”

Paradise Resort Gold Coast has led the charge to support mandatory vaccination, which has mostly been well received.

General manager David Brook said 90 per cent of customers had embraced their stance, but the resort had received online backlash from “keyboard warriors”.

“I’d say we’ve had about 400 room cancellations so far,” Mr Brook said.

“If anybody has a genuine reason or they choose to not get vaccinated, we’re giving full refunds because we believe it’s the right thing to do.”

He said the 400 cancellations had been offset by 1500 new bookings in the past few days.