Border consistency plea

TERRITORY tourist operators are set to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in bookings because of Covid-19 border lockouts.

The Northern Territory has implemented quarantine and testing directions for people who have been to a declared Covid-19 public exposure sites in Victoria, New South Wales and the ACT, forcing some holiday makers to cancel their Territory travel plans.

Public school holidays in Victoria and NSW run for two to three weeks from June 26 but some private schools have already started.

One Victorian traveller told the Sunday Territorian she has had to cancel $12,000 in travel and holiday bookings to the Territory because of the Territory’s border restrictions and said she knew of others faced with the same dilemma.

The woman said her husband and children had been looking forward to holidaying in the Territory, but these plans had now been ruined by the what she considers are inconsistent restrictions.

Anyone travelling to the Northern Territory from a Covid-19 hotspot which currently includes Greater Melbourne Local Government Areas must undertake 14 days of mandatory, supervised quarantine.

She pointed out that under Victoria’s current restrictions she could travel from metropolitan Melbourne (a declared Territory hot spot) to visit people in a regional area of Victoria (undeclared hotspot) and those people were free to travel unrestricted to the Northern Territory.

“It is just frustrating that we have eased our restrictions and the Territory refuses to budge on its position despite the clear inconsistency in its restrictions,” the woman said.

“I feel for the Territory’s tourist operators, who will now lose the thousands upon thousands of dollars money from cancelled bookings. The Territory is a beautiful place and we love it.

“It is a huge disappointment.”

Tourism Top End general manager Glen Hingley confirmed there had been businesses hit by cancellations and he has had friends experience the problems of their travel plans being impacted by border restrictions.

However, Mr Hingley believes the demand is still strong enough to fill the cancellations.

“Yes, there have been cancellations and tourist operators are turning to wait lists,” he said.

Mr Hingley said the changing Covid-19 restrictions have put an increased demand on operators to explain to potential interstate customers how the restrictions of the day will impact their decisions if they travel to the Territory.

“The challenge that a lot of members have is they themselves are sometimes struggling to know what the current border restrictions are,” he said.

“Likewise for inquiring tourists … we can only refer them to contact NT Health for the answers. You can’t fix every tourist’s problem because it just becomes so complicated.

“There seems to be a communication problem and that’s why when those people who do want to cancel or make their bookings it is really hard for tourism operators.

“I know operators are experiencing that difficulty in how to respond to their customers because the inconsistency of the restrictions and the information.

“As a nation we should be doing better with consistency across borders.”