WA tourism and hospitality back in business
Return to ‘Baseline Settings’ ends two years of disruption
Welcoming the WA Government decision to remove remaining border restrictions and event capacity limits, both the Tourism Council WA (TCWA) and the Australian Hotel Association (AHA WA) have described the move as a major step and a significant boost for the state’s tourism and hospitality sectors.
Tourism Council WA CEO, Evan Hall said the return to ‘baseline settings’ was a huge step forward for tourism and events, particularly the removal of the G2G pass and capacity limits.
“The G2G border restrictions created uncertainty for international and interstate visitors, and it is great to once again have the ability to freely travel between Australian states,” Mr Hall said.
Mr Hall said it would take some time to see bookings return for leisure tourism and major entertainment and sporting events.
“Western Australia is now open for business and the tourism industry looks forward to welcoming back visitors,” he said.
“With sporting teams and entertainers able to confidently travel and perform in front of full stadiums, Western Australia can look forward to experiencing major events once again.”
Mr Hall’s counterpart at the AHA WA, CEO Bradley Woods said removing the remaining restrictions on hospitality venues will deliver a significant boost to the industry and provide much needed certainty after two years of disruption.
“Ending mask wearing requirements, density limits and monitoring patron’s proof of vaccination will show that WA has secured the soft landing we were all aiming for,” he said.
“While the state has achieved excellent health outcomes, the pandemic has placed great strain on many hospitality businesses, so removing all COVID-19 measures will signal the start of the important recovery period ahead.
“This comes at a critical time when other major international tourism markets for Perth and WA also ease their restrictions.”
“Visitor bookings from overseas and interstate will see a massive surge once the government announces the removal of restrictions benefiting the hotel, tourism, meetings, conference and exhibition industry.”
Mike Parker-Brown is a UK-trained and qualified journalist and an award-winning travel communicator with more than 30 years experience.
Since 2002, Mike has worked as a freelance writer and PR consultant providing his services to major organisations in Australia and internationally in the tourism, aviation, hospitality, recruitment and export marketing sectors.
