Tourism to feel brunt of virus epidemic

QUEENSLAND’S tourism industry faces its greatest challenge since the SARS crisis 17 years ago amid renewed calls for travellers to take a holiday in their own backyard.

As the share value of Aussie companies plummeted in a $25 billion disaster for the Australian Stock Exchange, tourism leaders warned of the “very serious threat” posed by the Coronavirus epidemic, which has left more than 100 people dead and forced China to issue extraordinary travel bans.

Aussie travel companies were among those hardest hit on the sharemarkets, with Qantas and Flight Centre suffering significant losses.

Listed online travel firm Webjet was one of the hardest hit, shedding 13.8 per cent, while Queensland-based Corporate Travel Management fell nearly 7 per cent.

In the year to September, almost 500,000 Chinese travellers visited Queensland, injecting over $1.5 billion into the state’s economy. About a quarter of China’s visitors to Australia would be affected by the group travel ban.

Queensland Tourism Industry Council CEO Daniel Gschwind said the Coronavirus crisis had come as operators try to bounce back from a series of natural disasters.

“It’s the worst possible timing, it follows the catastrophic impact of the bushfires and drought and now the threat of the Coronavirus on top of that,” Mr Gschwind said. “It’s probably the biggest challenge for the industry since SARS (in 2003) which had a catastrophic impact on tourism.”