An outback tourism operator in Alice Springs will temporarily discontinue its tours to Uluru due to a lack of visitors and worker unrest over vaccination.
Emu Run tour owner Patrick Bedford said the Northern Territory government's vaccination mandate and the reopening of New South Wales' borders had played a key role in his decision to scale back the business.
"We used to operate with about 30-plus staff with casuals and full-timers, pre COVID. [Then] we were down to around 14 to 15."
Mr Bedford said they are now down to core staff of eight.
"To be honest [we can] just do the local touring around Alice Springs which will be the West MacDonnell Ranges ... the Alice Springs Desert Park and some airport shuttles.
Mr Bedford complained "there's nobody coming to Central Australia."
"For example, into Uluru there's only flights to Brisbane. So that means down there it's not very busy because New South Wales and Victoria can't fly in there either.
"There's just a whole issue across the whole region; where we normally have internationals, we don't have a domestic market to fill that void in this coming month," he said.
Mental toll
Mr Bedford said two of his staff were unwilling to be vaccinated.
"Funnily enough, we signed [one worker's] apprenticeship on the Wednesday and the [vaccination mandate] announcement was the next day.
"And she's like, 'Well, I'm not getting vaxxed,'" he said.
Mr Bedford said he had heard that other operators were also losing staff.
Mr Bedford said that the current situation was affecting his mental health.
"In the last couple of weeks, it really has taken its toll on me to be honest,
"This is the third time I've had to wind back my business ... mentally it's been quite challenging."
One thousand workers short
Tourism Central Australia chief executive Danial Rochford said that many businesses would lose employees as a result of the mandatory vaccination requirements.
"We're going to have a huge problem here in Central Australia. We're talking to our members constantly about this issue.
Mr Rochford said that despite the region heading into the low season, the effects of staff shortages were enormous.
"This becomes a real problem, in fact a tsunami, when we start to see demand pick up earlier in 2022, which we expect ... once we see relaxation of borders," he said.
