COVID-19 recovery for the tourism sector

How are we tracking? - January 2021

In June 2020, Deloitte Access Economics published a set of potential recovery scenarios to provide an Australian perspective on the COVID-19 crisis’ impact on the tourism sector.

Australia is in an enviable position when it comes to managing both the health and general economic impacts of the pandemic. This has, however, come with a heavy toll on tourism businesses, which have witnessed international and – at times – interstate travel coming to a standstill and have needed to adjust to meet evolving domestic travellers’ behaviours in the context of ever changing health regulations.

This new report provides an update on how we have tracked against the recovery scenarios, articulating the impact on the tourism sector across 2020 and provides current data points to inform the pace and shape of the recovery.

Uncertain road ahead for the tourism sector - June 2020

There are a raft of unanswered questions facing the tourism sector as it steps into the recovery period and tries to plan and prepare for a new normal. Have the travel restrictions imposed led to huge pent-up-demand, with millions of travellers at home dreaming and planning for travel once restrictions are lifted? How will the pandemic’s economic fallout on jobs and household income, and resulting subdued consumer sentiment, impact spending on travel? Will we redirect what we usually spend on overseas travel to domestic travel pursuits? Will we be confident to travel? And if we are, how will travel patterns and preferences change?

The Australian tourism sector has endured unprecedented hardship over the last six months with the damaging summer bushfire season having a profound impact, even prior to the unprecedented shutdown of the sector as a response to the COVID-19 health crisis. The fallout from these events will have significant and lasting impacts on the Australian tourism sector, among broader impacts on the entire Australian economy.