Steve Edmondson is hearing a few more foreign accents these days.
This week, he welcomed a couple from Italy celebrating their honeymoon who "jumped on" a boat last minute. Around the town of Port Douglas, he says an international flavour is slowly returning.
But even still, Mr Edmondson, who has run boutique tours of the Great Barrier Reef for 20 years, says it's been more of "a trickle" than a stampede.
And on his boats, the familiar Aussie twang still well and truly drowns most foreign accents out.
"I'd say at this stage we're about 15 per cent international tourists," he said.
"Before COVID it was a 50:50 spread."
This week marks six months since Australia hinged open its border to once again welcome international tourists into the country.
Yet, numbers are still well down on pre-COVID levels.
ABS figures show that in June, 275,300 short-term overseas visitors arrived in Australia. In June 2019, there were 660,340.
It's not just big spenders staying away.
The Department of Home Affairs confirmed to the ABC that 13,700 backpacker visas — known as Working Holiday Maker (WHM) visas — are currently pending.
There are also 70,060 backpackers with valid visas currently outside of Australia who could travel and work here if they wanted, but have chosen to stay away.
That's nearly 84,000 spenders and potential workers who aren't here, at a time when Australia needs both.
Industry experts say there are a number of reasons for the lag.
The high cost and inconsistency of flights is one. Then there are the delays in the government's processing of visas.
The continued COVID restrictions in traditional high-volume markets like China and Japan is another.
And then there's the slow return of cruise ships after multiple COVID-related disasters
The ABC spoke to a number of operators and industry representatives in traditional tourism hotspots, from Far North Queensland to the Kimberleys in Western Australia.
Some, like Cairns-based operator Nikki Giumelli, said they were managing — even thriving — as many Australians remained hesitant about overseas travel and continued to holiday at home.
Ms Giumelli, the owner of Bad Fishy jet boats, said over the past six months they'd had "really good" domestic trade.
"But obviously the international market is going to take a bit of time to rebound," she said.
"But we were expecting this.
"We're starting to see that student market return [and] some of the backpacker market and we have seen free independent travellers from the UK, Europe and US coming.
"But certainly not in the numbers that they have historically, in those big groups."
The slow rebound of international arrivals is just one of a number of issues impeding the sector's post-COVID recovery, experts say.
But there is one issue that's a constant: a lack of staff.
Many larger resorts, hospitality venues and destination experiences in traditional tourist areas are operating at limited capacity, with a lack of backpackers to fill the jobs seen as one of the major factors.
Over in Broome, Red Sun Camels owner-operator John Geappen said he'd had a bumper season with domestic tourists continuing to visit Broome en masse.
Speaking from the town's famous Cable Beach, Mr Geappen said any small business owner in the town who hadn't "made a quid this season was an idiot".
But, he said, around the town the staffing problem meant a lot of businesses were struggling to reap the benefits of the continued high volume of domestic travellers.
"The major international factor that we're dealing with is the lack of backpackers," he said.
"They're all waiting to come, but the applications are sitting there on a desk in Canberra waiting to be processed.
"The result is we've got a lot of businesses that are suffering. Hundreds and hundreds of hospitality-related businesses rely on them.
"How hard is it? Put a stamp on it, let 'em in. It's a no-brainer mate."
The Department of Home Affairs said processing visa applications was a "priority" for the government and it was "working" to reduce processing times and the number of on-hand visa applications.
UQ Business School associate professor Richard Robinson, an expert on the tourism workforce, said it was common to see major resorts and accommodation providers operating at half or two-thirds capacity as they didn’t have the staff and wanted to "maintain standards".
"What we're finding now in terms of the employment crisis is that there's significant imbalance in the supply and demand," he said.
"There is a perfect storm," he said.
He said Australia’s low unemployment rate, the insecurity of the work and the low pay in the tourism and hospitality sectors was a factor.
He added the lack of "a soak" to pick up the slack – in the form of backpackers on visas and the international students – was a big driver.
Back in Port Douglas, Steve Edmondson said he and his team had worked hard as a "mum and dad" boutique business employing 30 people, to give local visitors a unique experience and has "never been busier".
He said the "bounce back" of international tourists would happen, but it would take time.
"They're starting to filter through, but the airline situation is going to take some time to resolve," he said.
"And looking ahead, our forward international bookings in the next year or two are very strong,
"The key thing is we're an incredibly lucky country, and the reef is in an amazing unique destination that people will want to travel a long way for, always."
