Tasmania can now welcome fully vaccinated international visitors, though the tourism sector is keenly aware market recovery will be a slow process.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
All states besides Western Australia began to accept international arrivals who would no longer have to go into a mandatory quarantine arrangement.
Tourism Industry Council Tasmania chief executive Luke Martin said the reopening of borders to international travellers could not have come soon enough for some businesses.
"For those Tasmanian tourism operators who specialised in international tourism, the last two years have been a living hell," he said.
Mr Martin said there needed to be realistic expectations about the path ahead for international tourism.
"The global travel market has been smashed and is going to take much longer to recover than domestic travel," he said.
"We traditionally see most of our international tourism over the summer months so it is going to be a slow burn through winter.
"Our hope would be the market has sufficiently recovered to look forward to a strong summer next year."
Mr Martin said the sector would work to maximise opportunities with New Zealand given the state's direct air service as well as the British and American markets.
He said prospects from the Asian market remained unknown.
"Who knows what the Chinese market will look like over the next two or three years which is why businesses really need to have a diversified market mix if they are going to be sustainable in the long term," Mr Martin said.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said it would take some time for international tourism to return to pre-pandemic levels as travel destinations outside the country would be fiercely competing to rebuild their share of the tourism market.
"There's a lot of work to do in rebuilding all of those supply channels to bring tourists to Australia," he said during a visit to Launceston on Monday.
"Tourism Australia has kicked off their $40 million campaign to start that in all of our key markets where they can come to Australia and they will."
Prior to the pandemic, 282,900 international visitors spent $555 million in Tasmania in 2019.
Visit Northern Tasmania chief executive Chris Griffin said 26 per cent of Northern Tasmania's non-Tasmanian visitor yield came from interntional markets at a value of $146 million.
"Given this sizable chunk of our trade, the announcement to reopen international markets has been welcome news for many in our industry," he said.
"However, free-flowing international travel is only possible when international markets reciprocate by reopening their borders, and many of target country markets are yet to act, China and New Zealand being two good examples."
What do you think? Send us a letter to the editor: