So far the federal government has only published a Three Step Framework for Recovery

Now the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry has stepped up and put out a PROPOSED TOURISM RESTART TIMETABLE

The Chamber’s newly-formed Tourism Restart Taskforce approved the timetable for business events, venues and attractions, and domestic and international travel, at its weekly meeting last Friday.

According to the proposed timetable, Business Events of less than 100 pax can get together from the beginning of July then over 100 pax from mid-September. “Ticketed events” don’t kick in again until mid-October. One assumes they mean ticketed events to be theatre and other indoor events.

The Taskforce make no mention of festivals and other outdoor events in this proposal – so one has to assume they will still be in limbo until next year.

As we have seen by the lifting of restrictions so far, this will be an ad hoc affair as the various states and territories work to their own agendas.

Executive Chairman of Australian Chamber – Tourism, John Hart posted the graphic on LinkedIn and got quite a few responses from Business Events identities who pointed out the tracking apps and protocols developed by the industry can easily monitor guests and delegates at conferences, expos, awards, dinners, weddings, etc.

Joyce DiMascio said…

“John – the events sector has been slammed. We should be able to re-open safely with 100 pax sooner than has been proposed in the timetable for stage 4. Our sector can track attendees at any kind of event – conference, wedding, expo, dinners. We’ve had tracking software in place long before any COVID-10 APP. We can socially distance and we can and have introduced sanitation. Would you please do all you can in your position of tremendous influence to also support the events industry. You’ve done a great job for the restaurants and pubs. We need this for our sectors – our venues were the first to close – and it looks like we’ll be the last to re-open.”

And from Spiro Anemogiannis, EEAA President

“Out of all the activities listed above; At Business Events we can track everyone who comes to our venues. We can social distance. We can run multiple events in different rooms at our venues and rune them safely. We have easy access to online registration tools and at venue tools that enable us to manage who and how many attend. We also can and have introduced sanitation protocols. So whilst a September start date as per the above timetable we feel that even an August start date is achievable in a bio-safe environment”

And the event industry is well ahead of the restaurant and hotels sector when it comes to tracking with reports that some restaurants are conducting tracking by asking patrons to write their contact details on a sheet of paper.