At a tiny office inside a run-down Campsie building in Sydney’s south-west, Jenny Yang is deciding whether to retire or keep working.
The 61-year-old Chinese Australian has been working in the tourism industry for more than two decades, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of international borders has nearly destroyed everything she’s built.
“My business is down by almost 95 per cent,” she told the ABC.
“There’s no income. I have no business.
“[International] flights have almost disappeared [because] Australian citizens and permanent residents are barred from travelling.
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Many regular customers had been traveling around the world with Ms Yang’s help for years, until the pandemic struck last year.
“I don’t know what to do in the future,” she said.
“I told my friend, maybe it’s time to retire.”
‘I’m a victim too’
There is no doubt that the Australian economy is bouncing back with recoveries in the labour market, business profits and consumer confidence.
But the benefit of the economic rebound has not reached businesses relying on international tourists and students like Ms Yang’s, and many continue to struggle with no end in sight.
Ms Yang said last year she had been constantly dealing with flight cancellations and trip amendments.
“Before August, almost everything was about refunding and exchanging tickets, which made us so exhausted. I lost money instead of making money,” she said.
But the federal government’s JobKeeper scheme came to an end in late March.
Ms Yang said many of her fellow agents had either shut down for good, laid off their staff or ended their office leases to work from home to reduce costs.
In late January, Ms Yang and 150 other travel agents sent a petition to Parliament calling for JobKeeper to be extended for travel and tourism agencies beyond the March deadline, but it was unsuccessful.
She hopes that the federal government will consider the dire situation of her industry in the upcoming federal budget and bring back the JobKeeper payments for travel agents.
“I have lost all my staff, and now it’s just me and my husband,” she said.
“I understand that it’s a tough job for the government, but Qantas was given exceptional payments until October … I’m a victim too in the [tourism] industry.
“I hope the federal government will give us special consideration.”
The federal government is already providing $258 million for travel agents, inbound tour operators and tour wholesalers under the COVID-19 Consumer Travel Support Program.
‘No light at the end of the tunnel’
The budget to be released on Tuesday is expected to address themes across economic recovery, unemployment, childcare, aged care, income tax and immigration.
Like many in the international education industry, Kirk Yan will be watching closely.
He runs Newstars, an education and immigration agency in Melbourne which has also been hit hard by international border closures.
“I’ve been following the budget for almost my entire career, because several years ago the government linked the migration quota to the federal budget,” the 36-year-old told the ABC.
“The migration planning levels for the new financial year will have a significant impact on my business, because lots of international students are attracted by a possible migration pathway after graduation.”
Mr Yan said his business in both education and migration services had halved due to the halt in international student arrivals.
And what worries him the most is that the existing client pool is quickly drying up as many students choose to permanently return to their home countries.
“The past year has been very difficult for onshore international students.
“They had to study online, struggled to secure part-time jobs and barely got any financial support.
“Most of them don’t feel they were appreciated. They told me they felt a bit like cash cows.”
Mr Yan said the tightening immigration policies for skilled migrants was another factor.
In last year’s budget, the total skilled migration quota was slashed by 20 per cent, from 100,682 in the 2019-20 financial year to 79,600 in the 2020-21 financial year, while the family migration quota was increased.
“In some streams, such as ‘skilled independent’ and ‘state nomination’, the number was cut by over 50 per cent over the past financial year, even ’employer sponsored’ was cut by over a quarter,” he said.
Mr Yan said he wanted to see the federal government bring skilled migration to the pre-pandemic level and offer more immigration pathways.
“Maybe other industries have already seen the light out of the tunnel,” he said.
“Our industry is definitely still in the tunnel with no light at the end of it.”
Calls for tax relief and JobKeeper replacement in the budget
At Monash University’s Clayton campus, in Melbourne’s south-east, businesses are also suffering from the lack of international students and several shops and restaurants remain closed.
Flora Lu, who owns a cafe at the student centre, said there were days when she had zero customers during Victoria’s lockdowns.
Although some students have returned to the campus since February, she said there were still not enough customers.
Ms Lu said the cost of running her business had increased after the lockdowns, but people were getting similar or even less income.
“So [they] are more cautious about spending, and so I can’t adjust our pricing [to keep up with the inflation],” she told the ABC.
“We are quite stressed about tax. If we could receive some relief from the government, it would be a great help.”
Ms Lu said she hopes to see tax offsets for small businesses in the budget.
Frank Gocotta, president of Clayton Traders Association, said the federal government should try to understand what small businesses had been through before formulating the budget.
“What I’d like the federal government to realise is that small businesses are not going to be able to get the last 12 months back in Victoria,” Mr Gocotta said.
“We were forced to close for seven months, which is a long time in hospitality.
“Just because we are now operating again, it doesn’t mean that things are back to normal.
“I think if we can encourage international students back, it’s definitely going to help Clayton … and to understand that we’ve got a tough two or three years ahead of us in our recovery.”
Simon Chan, president of the Haymarket Chamber of Commerce in Sydney, also wants students to return.
His organisation represents hundreds of businesses in the Haymarket precinct in Sydney’s CBD, where Chinatown is located.
“There are signs of more activity and people starting to come back to the city, but businesses around Chinatown are still [doing very badly],” Mr Chan said.
“70 to 80 per cent of their business comes from international tourists and international students and I don’t think businesses in Chinatown will fully recover until the international border is open.”
Both Mr Gocotta and Mr Chan agreed that the JobKeeper scheme kept many businesses afloat, but it was time for the government to find the next solution.
“I’d like to see the JobKeeper program extended and targeted at industries which rely on the international borders reopening,” Mr Chan said.
“It would be nice to have some sort of forecast, because many businesses rely on certainty to plan ahead … updates on the vaccine rollout and when the international borders will open.”
For Ms Yang, it’s her passion for tourism and the business she’s built that keeps her looking to the future.
“This is my career, I want to keep on fighting,” she said.
“I believe the tourism industry will rebound once the borders are open. My clients told me they’d travel with me again.”
CREDIT: ABC
Witten by Samuel Yang, Wing Kuang and Sean Mantesso
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