The Australian Tourism Industry Council (ATIC) is calling on the Commonwealth Government to urgently reinstate the $35.5 billion Cash Flow Boost program to provide ailing small and family-owned businesses a desperately needed lifeline.
It’s an all too familiar story, with the effects of the pandemic continuing to cause chaos.
Deputy Chair of ATIC, Daniel Gschwind, stated that the situation for many tourism and hospitality businesses is dire and government support is urgently needed.
Additionally, the summer capital that these businesses rely upon for the rest of the year is non-existent this season.
“This is the worst it’s ever been for the tourism industry. The Summer period is our peak season, providing revenue that takes businesses through the winter and they’re not seeing it come in. Too many businesses are staring at disaster.”
“The tourism industry has already been decimated over the past two years and these businesses simply have nothing left to fall back on.”
“Tourism businesses were hopeful that this current peak season would be a revival of their financial outlook and those hopes have now been dashed.”
According to the latest National Tourism Business Activity and COVID-19 Survey for the October-December quarter has revealed that tourism operators are on average experiencing a 52% downturn in business compared to the same quarter in 2019, pre-COVID.
“The data shows what we already know, that after a devastating two years and no hope of an upturn, tourism operators desperately need support in order to survive.”
“The Government’s Cash Flow Boost program was a great success when it was last implemented – and it needs to come back to support devastated tourism businesses across the country.”
Last year the government released a number of initiatives to help support businesses, including the COVID-19 Consumer Travel Support Program (CTSP) – a multi-outlet scheme providing funding to travel agents and tour arrangement service providers with multi-outlets, destination vouchers to attract Aussie travellers to tourist destinations around the country and an aviation recovery plan to help airlines stay afloat during the pandemic.
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