South Australian travel industry identity Phil Hoffmann has urged the federal government to maintain financial support for the sector as it continues to feel the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mr Hoffmann met with federal Tourism Minister Dan Tehan and Finance Minister Simon Birmingham on Monday at a roundtable event in Adelaide.
He said the unique circumstances of Australia's outbound travel sector, alongside the significant lag in revenue flow to travel agents, meant ongoing support was a must.
"On top of the international travel ban, the suspension of cruise and the stop-start domestic border situation, we are effectively entering our fourth year of significant business impact," he said in a statement.
"We had to refund almost half our revenue in 2019 for travel that couldn't be undertaken in 2020.
"We have had a hard lockdown of 700-plus days as a result of Australians not being able to travel internationally, further aggravated by the various domestic border closures."
Mr Hoffmann said while it was fantastic that international travel in and out of Australia was starting up again, it was going to be many months before it returned to pre-COVID levels.
He said travel businesses also routinely waited six to nine months before they received final payments, so the industry was "in for a long, hard 2022".
"This is the fourth year of financial impact for Australia's travel businesses," he said.
"The Omicron variant meant terrible trading conditions in December and January and while there's been a slight uptick in bookings since the relaxation of international borders, it's going to take time for travel to get back to where it was."
Mr Hoffmann said agents needed the ban on cruises to be lifted so that ships could return and also needed ongoing government support.
He said that should include the immediate release of funds remaining from the first two rounds of the Consumer Travel Support Program.
