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Australia - Tourism council pushes for drop in airline fuel surcharge

Updated - 11/9/2008 - abc news online.

 

Queensland’s Tourism Industry Council says it wants airlines to consider reducing fuel surcharges on airfares.

Qantas and Virgin Blue have been urged to follow Singapore Airlines and reduce ticket prices after a drop in the price of jet fuel.

The council’s Daniel Gschwind says he supports reducing the surcharge but only if it means existing services are maintained.

"A few dollars on top of the airfare up or down makes less difference than routes being cancelled altogether," he said.

"Cheaper airfares are always good for consumers and they’re certainly good for the tourism industry."

Mr Gschwind says anything which makes Queensland a more expensive destination is bad for business.

The State Government says the number of overseas tourists coming to Queensland fell by almost 3 per cent last financial year.

And one of the state’s traditionally strong tourism markets continued to slide with visitor numbers from Japan down by 16 per cent.

Mr Gschwind says that will further hurt operators.

"Which is a great worry for destinations like the Gold Coast and North Queensland and that trend has unfortunately continued," he said.

"There is a lot of effort being made to stem that and to make sure that we can continue to work with the Japanese market, it still is important to Australia, important to Queensland but it certainly hasn’t been the workhorse it has been in the past."

He says the higher Australian dollar and fuel costs hit business hard.

"Operators have struggled and have worked very hard to offset some of this but the figures now show that it is having an impact on visitor flows to Australia and it will continue to be a challenge for the next six to twelve months I would suggest."

 

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