WA government to subsidize 50,000 flights for Western Australians to and from Perth and Broome, Kununurra and Exmouth
Announcing the measure ahead of Thursday’s state budget, Premier Mark McGowan said the deal with Virgin Australia and Qantas would help WA tourist areas hardest hit by COVID-19
The government’s previous sale of discount plane tickets ended in 48 hours, prompting criticism from travel agents who have been on the verge of collapse since the start of the pandemic
The Prime Minister described the deal announced on Monday as the « largest regional aviation partnership Western Australia has ever seen »
« The tourism industry in the upstate has felt the effects of COVID-19 the most, its remoteness making it more difficult to attract intra-state tourists, » he said
The WA region has struggled to attract workers in recent months, in part due to the reduced number of interstate and international travelers on working holidays
« It’s a challenge and it’s a tough one to take on, but I’d rather take that challenge than the one they face in Melbourne, » he said.
M Papalia said businesses in eastern states still cannot operate due to COVID-19 restrictions
« Several tens of thousands of hotel workers in New South Wales and Queensland are not at work, » he said
« We don’t have this problem in WA, what we need to do is encourage West Australians to think about going out and working in a beautiful holiday region
« I hope [that number will increase] as JobSeeker goes down and people realize over the next week or two that their JobSeeker is lower, that there are great opportunities in the regions «
M Papalia is also stuck by the hard border, claiming there is no room for interstate tourists in areas of the state
« I rocked all over the state from the Kimberley the Pilbara, the Mid West, the Gascoyne, I was in Hope on the weekends and Kalgoorlie, » he said
« State accommodation providers receive visitor numbers unlike any other In the southwest, we had the biggest winter in history »
Last week, Evan Hall, chief executive of Tourism Council WA, denied Mr. McGowan: High-income Western Australians would simply leave the state to spend money in the East if the hard border was removed, and said more jobs would be saved thanks to interstate tourism that without that
« Visitors to Western Australia have rescued regional accommodation and hospitality businesses after months of closure, but tourism businesses cannot be sustained without visitors and interstate workers, » he said
Tourism figures released on Friday revealed spending by intra-state visitors increased by $ 72 million in July 2020 from the previous year
But that was not enough to make up for the $ 286 million lost due to the lack of interstate visitors, on top of the $ 193 million lost by international visitors
Nathan is WAtoday political reporter and winner of the 2019 Arthur Lovekin Award for Excellence in Journalism
Broome, Perth, Tourism, Exmouth, Kununurra, Virgin Australia Airlines, Qantas, Mark McGowan
World News – AU – Cheap Flights to the Northwest as Cash Flow in the WA budget pre-election
SOURCE: https://www.w24news.com
