Speaking to TTG on Friday (1 July), Harrison said the UK market has been performing at around 80% of pre-pandemic levels since the country reopened its borders in April.
"Visitation bounced-back pretty quickly and we recovered to about 50% of forward bookings in the first four months since we reopened and the UK is outperforming that 50%," she added. "A lot of it is the visiting friends and relatives market, but leisure business is coming back from September onwards."
The tourism authority predicted a return to pre-pandemic global traffic numbers by the start of 2024. "But we want to go beyond on that," Harrison said.
"It will take a bit of time to get back to that, we’re thinking maybe early 2024, but the way we are going, some markets will be back next year and I do think the UK will be one of those.
"It also depends on the aviation rebuild. We’re currently at about 54% of pre-pandemic capacity which is going to be 70% by the end of the year. That will be really useful, to get that capacity back online, because when that capacity is constrained, its harder to convert that business."
Harrison said the UK travel trade "has always been incredibly important" to the country and thanked agents for helping convert customer demand "into reality".
"Australia is a big and complex destination, and we know the trade really are just an extension of what we do," she added.
Despite Harrison describing the past few years as an "incredibly painful and challenging time" for the tourism industry, she welcomed the increase in domestic tourism in Australia.
"We did have a domestic audience to rely on, which meant businesses had a good livelihood over that period. But we always said we wouldn’t get back to normal until our international visitors are back, but it did certainly help us get through a tricky two years," she said.
"We didn’t stand still during the closure. Over the two year period we had more than 100 hotels open or be refurbished, equalling 12,000 new rooms. We had a lot of new product coming online, as well as a whole range of new experiences.
"We are here and ready to go and welcome visitors back. It’s not problem free, but they’re problems we like to have, as it means we are on the way back to some sort of normality and getting our visitation back."
