TOURISTS can finally dip their toes in Bondi Beach, dive the Great Barrier Reef and drive the Great Ocean Road again.

Australia reopened its international borders to double-vaccinated visitors yesterday, following almost two years of strict travel bans introduced to stem the spread of COVID-19.

It’s a long-awaited day for the tourism sector, which employed about 5 percent of the nation’s workforce and contributed 3 percent to the economy prior to the pandemic — and was already reeling in early 2020 from devastating wildfires.

Tony Brown, who operates True Blue Sailing in Queensland’s Whitsunday Islands, said he was feeling “really positive” about the reopening, adding he was getting bookings all the way up to December this year.

“That’s showing there’s a confidence level that hasn’t been in the marketplace for a number of years now,” he said.

Brown said it could take some time before the tourism industry was fully back on its feet, with entire sections of the booking infrastructure closing their doors during the pandemic. “The main sort of booking system that it all came from, Australia-wide, has basically just disappeared,” he said.

The demise of the fortress Australia policy, which was highlighted when unvaccinated tennis star Novak Djokovic was deported earlier this year, is the latest step in the nation’s shift toward living with the virus.

The new approach includes managing the current outbreak of the Omicron variant without resorting to lockdowns, after the country hit a 94 percent vaccination rate for people aged 16 and over and rolled out its booster shot campaign.

There are now just a few governments clinging on to COVID-zero policies. New Zealand is also keeping its borders shut to tourists for now while it grapples with a wave of Omicron.

Trying to entice tourists to board such a long-haul flight is no easy task, no matter how appealing the destination. Tourism Australia last week launched a fresh A$40 million (US$28.8 million) campaign with the slogan “Don’t Go Small. Go Australia,” to run in Germany, France, Italy, Canada, the United States and the U.K.

“We also considered the popular destinations and cities which have been impacted the most by the pandemic and put them in the spotlight,” Tourism Australia chief marketing officer Susan Coghill said in a statement.

The reopening will be a major boost to Australia’s key services industries, with a potential influx of students, working holidaymakers and skilled visa holders offering the prospect of filling shortages in pockets of the labor market.

“The wait is over. There’s some more than 1.2 million people around the world who are visaed up and they can come,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison said ahead of the reopening. “To tourists all around the world, pack your bags, come and have one of the greatest experiences you could ever imagine.”

Visitors will soon even be able to visit Western Australia, where Ningaloo Reef and the Margaret River wine region are among leading attractions. The state will finally end its own strict COVID-zero policy March 3. (SD-Agencies)