University of Queensland (UQ) Associate Professor, Richard Robinson, is investigating the impact of COVID-19 on Queensland’s tourism workforce and developing a crisis resilience and recovery plan with the support of the state government.
The UQ Business School researcher conducted 15 consultation workshops with tourism industry operators across five Queensland regions – Southern Queensland, Outback Queensland, Tropical North Queensland, Whitsundays and Gold Coast.
Dr Robinson said Tropical North Queensland operators had suffered the most with a loss of both international tourists and the international labour market, such as working holiday makers.
Businesses in marine and Indigenous tourism were most impacted.
“Tourism operators are really struggling to get workers in their regions due to the uncertainty of domestic and international border closures,” Dr Robinson said.
“The key concerns that came up in the consultations were mostly around job security, financial hardship, wellbeing and skilled labour shortages.
“We are working on strategies for recovery and resilience, focused on three industry groups who experience the crisis differently – employees, businesses, and stakeholders – to support a staged recovery from COVID-19 impacts and develop workforce resilience.”
Financial supports like JobKeeper improved work opportunities and a strong sense of community helped boost workforce confidence in mid-2020, but it has since declined again in 2021 due to continuous lockdowns and border closures.
The latest tourism figures show a 48.9 per cent drop in visitors to Tropical North Queensland, while the outback boomed with a record winter season from Australian travellers.
Tourism operators and employees rated job security as the biggest impact of the pandemic.
Dr Robinson’s research was conducted in partnership with the Queensland Tourism Industry Council and funded by the Queensland Government’s Advance Queensland scheme.
See the full report HERE.
IMAGE: Discover Queensland – Gold Coast
