Australian Chamber Tourism welcomes regional funding but highlights cities also need support  

While the Australian Chamber Tourism has welcomed the Federal Government’s much needed Regional Tourism Recovery Package, it recognises that Australian capital cities have also been significantly impacted by COVID-19 and require recovery assistance.

The Chair of the Tourism Restart Taskforce - established to bring together tourism leaders to address the challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Jeremy Johnson advised “while this package is very important to regional tourism, it also needs to be recognised that some of the greatest tourism impacts of the COVID-19 response has been in our capital cities. Businesses and workers based in the cities will need support to recover at some stage as well.

“The $100 Million of infrastructure spend for tourism will assist the regions to rebuild their visitor economy. There are many demands on the regions brought about by the change to servicing domestic markets in the short-term. This fund will help the regions to develop the infrastructure needed to do that.

“The COVID-19 response has come at a huge cost to tourism. This package will help many regions to rebuild and that will save businesses and jobs that are vital to the national and local economies.”

In a week of announcements that have shown how tourism has been torn apart by the COVID-19 response, the Federal Government’s regional recovery package provides some hope for the region’s worst affected. The $50 million Recovery of Regional Tourism Fund will support the nine regions that are most impacted by the national border closure.

Australian Chamber Tourism Executive Chair, John Hart notes that “this fund will help address the great divide in tourism between the regions that have been able to capitalise on some intrastate visitation and those that have not.

“While tourism in every part of Australia has been decimated, some regions have been particularly badly impacted by the 96% reduction in international tourism and this support will help them rebuild and adapt their product.”

Image: Melbourne Laneways courtesy of Vist Victoria