With the coronavirus pandemic causing a havoc across various economies in the world along with paralyzing some of the main businesses and industries, vivid countries have been looking forward to introducing diverse strategies and support packages that could help the nation recuperate from the heavy losses. In one such instance, the Australian government has recently introduced a USD 928 million relief and support tourism package to bolster the local travel industry.
As per credible reports, the package is expected to include around USD 155 million of support for Virgin Australia and Qantas Airways Ltd. from April to October to support the wages for international flying staff, maintaining mothballed aircraft, keeping skills updated, and bringing planes and aircrafts out of storage.
Meanwhile, the government is also looking forward to subsidizing nearly 800,000 tickets on domestic flights to 13 destinations in and around the country that rely on global tourists and provide cheap loans to relatively small tourism operators.
Speaking on the latest accomplishment, Scott Morrison, Prime Minster of Australia, quoted that the country’s tourism business does not want to rely on government support forever and is rigorously working to win their tourists back.
The newly announced package, in this regard, combined with the country’s nationwide vaccine roll—out initiative, is anticipated to reconcile the gap which will help Australian tourism industry and airline companies to get back to their normal trading. However, Morrison is also taking steps in reopening international borders as of now, given the surging COVID-19 cases.
On the other hand, Qantas’ Chief Executive, Alan Joyce, cited that the program would enable airline customers to stay connected with Qantas, so that when the borders open up, the team has the capability to start as many flights as possible.
Post this announcement, the shares of tourism-related stocks observed early gains on the region’s share market, with travel agents Webjet Ltd., and Flight Center Ltd., both recording gains of more than 6% to trade near one-year intraday highs. Besides, Qantas also observed a hike of 3% in shares.