Why there won’t be a ‘flood’ of international tourists when Australia opens the borders

There are growings signs Australia is poised to reopen the borders to international tourists.

Scott Morrison yesterday told reporters the reopening of borders “isn’t far away”, and the national security committee will meet today to discuss the matter.

Chief Executive Officer of the Tourism & Transport Forum, Margy Osmond, says if the borders don’t open soon, many more businesses will fold.

We’re already in the situation where we’ve lost hundreds of thousands of employees and hundreds of businesses,” she told Neil Mitchell.

“If you want a tourism industry we do need to look at opening those borders.”

Ms Osmond says there’s no need to fear a “flood” of tourists when the international borders reopen, because it’ll come as more of a trickle.

“Our biggest audience was China, they’re not allowed to travel at the moment,” she said.

“New Zealand — we’re unlikely to see travellers from there until the middle of the year, and they’re our number two market.

“To be honest, our aviation capacity has been so badly knocked about … we’ve got some work to do before there’s a lot of tourists coming.”