Tourism Council WA has welcomed the announcement today by the Premier that Western Australia will remove the quarantine requirement for visitors from New South Wales and Victoria from December 8.
Chief Executive Officer Evan Hall said the date announcement would provide certainty for tourism businesses to take bookings, and for visitors intending to travel to WA.
"More than 60 per cent of Western Australia's interstate visitors come from New South Wales and Victoria, with visitors from those States injecting more than $1 billion annually into the WA economy," Mr Hall said.
A recent industry survey showed more than 60 per cent of tourism businesses were concerned WA was losing bookings to States which were open.
"Today's announcement will allow flights to be scheduled, events to be planned, and tourism businesses to take firm bookings," Mr Hall said.
"While visitors from New South Wales and Victoria could not travel to WA, we were losing flights, events and visitors to states like Queensland.
"Right now, Australians are booking family reunions, summer holidays and next year's getaways en masse. Today's announcement means Western Australia can compete for those bookings.
"There are 20,000 jobs at risk across the tourism industry if WA doesn't secure enough bookings before JobKeeper runs out in March."
Mr Hall said in order to compete with other States, investment in discounted flights into Perth and regional WA was urgently needed.
"When Queensland opened to Sydney, Qantas and Jetstar immediately added more than 170 flights per week starting from today," he said.
"Other States have opened with discount interstate airfares as low as $39 one way. To compete, the State Government will need to invest in discount flights into Perth and regional WA."
