The tourism industry is urging the Home Affairs Department to speed up the processing of tourist visas as some travellers face months-long delays to enter Australia to holiday or see family.
While there was much fanfare when Australia fully reopened to the world in February, the recovery for tourist operators has been sluggish, with overseas arrivals still far below pre-pandemic levels.
"If we make it difficult for them to get a visa and it takes forever, they'll take their money and trip elsewhere," Margy Osmond, chief executive of the Tourism and Transport Forum, told 7.30.
"It is actually damaging our brand not to be able to get those visas out the door as quickly as possible in the most appropriate way."
Australia's $60 billion tourism industry lost an estimated 610,000 jobs during the pandemic.
Queenslander Leonora Luff told 7.30 she was desperate to reconnect with her relatives in the Philippines but they had been waiting five months for their tourist visa to visit Australia.
They have not heard back from the department and applicants are unable to check on the status of their application.
Ms Luff said she had not seen her young niece for years and had not met her one-year-old nephew.
"The stress to the family, the emotional toll and the psychological toll, it can be unbearable," she said.
"It is very important for me because they're like my children, they're my joy, they're my world."
The Home Affairs Department said it had experienced a 427 per cent increase in visitor visa holders since the border was partially reopened to some travellers in November last year.
The department says tourist-visa processing times have improved from 20 months to 37 days for 90 per cent of applications as it works through the backlog.
When asked what applicants should do if they had not heard about their visa status, the Home Affairs Department did not provide a direct answer, but said: "All applications are assessed on a case by case basis and processing times can vary due to individual circumstance and whether or not the application lodged was incomplete or required further information."
Many operators, such as BridgeClimb in Sydney, which runs the iconic Harbour Bridge climbing tour, are yet to see pre-pandemic numbers of foreign tourists return.
Domestic sightseers now make up the majority of current sales.
"We couldn't keep going at this rate for an elongated period of time," chief executive Deb Zimmer said.
"What we can see is the green shoots, and we're really hopeful, but for us the litmus test really is December and January."
Waiting for Chinese tourists to return
On top of visa delays and aviation constraints, Australia's tourism sector is facing a $12 billion black hole because the Chinese visitor market has evaporated.
Before the pandemic, Chinese tourists were the largest and biggest-spending group of visitors to Australia — about 1.4 million people a year.
Now Chinese tourists have dropped to eighth spot, with British visitors now on top.
That is because China is still living under a hardline zero-COVID strategy, meaning residents face localised lockdowns and restrictions on non-essential travel out of the country.
Jian Sun runs a bus tour in Sydney that specialises in Chinese visitors. He has had to switch to domestic Chinese Australians to fill in the gap, and is worried about how long it might take for Chinese nationals to return.
"We feel a bit nervous and stressed because of the uncertainty," he told 7.30.
Tourism sector's full recovery at least 12 months away
While the industry expects a slow recovery, it celebrated a significant milestone last month with the return of the Australian Tourism Exchange, an expo where buyers and sellers do business.
It was the first time in two years that overseas buyers could meet face to face with Australian operators.
Tourism operator Sherry Heard travelled from Texas to see what Australia had to offer to Americans.
Ms Heard told 7.30 she believed people should not fear taking an overseas trip.
"The world is fully equipped to handle all types of tourism, whether it's here in Australia or any part of the world," she said.
"It's time that people start travelling again."
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