The release of quarterly Australian tourism labour stats last Thursday has prompted The Australian Federation of Travel Agents (AFTA) to issue a dire warning that the figures only hint at the current and future employment carnage across travel agencies.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics Tourism Satellite Account: tourism labour statistics tracks the health of the tourism sector over the year to March 2020, and captures the impact of the December 2019 and January bushfires and the beginning of international travel restrictions due to COVID-10.
“Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, travel agents operated close to 3,000 locations nationally and employed 40,000 Australians. A recent AFTA member survey showed 98% of our member travel agents have seen revenues drop by 90% and more as a result of the pandemic,” said AFTA CEO, Darren Rudd.
“These ABS quarterly stats reflect the fact that tourism has been harder hit than the wider economy, however, we know from our member agents that while JobKeeper has been a very welcome lifeline to keep travel consultants working, this situation has already worsened significantly since March.”
The quarterly report shows that the impact of the bushfires and the beginning of COVID-19 alone cost the sector 21,900 jobs – 74 per cent of which were full time positions. This is the largest ever fall recorded by the ABS since tracking of tourism jobs began in 2004.
“Only three countries in the world have completely closed their borders – India, New Zealand and Australia. While we understand the health rationale, we need to find a way forward by working together to end this commercial and cultural discrimination and get us travelling again.”
