Wish you were here? The economic impact of the tourism shutdown from Australia’s 2019-20 ‘Black Summer’ bushfires

This comprehensive analysis highlighted the economic impacts of the tourism shutdown from Australia's 2019-20 Black Summer Bushfires. This analysis could be used for budgeting and rebuilding in community-and-industry hotspots that may be far from the burn scar. This research quantifed the cost of the short-term shock from tourism losses across the entire supply chain using input-output (IO) analysis, which is the most common method for disaster analysis; to this end. Lastly, the researchers also developed a framework for disaggregating the direct fire damages in different tourism sectors from which to quantify the impacts, because after the fires, the economy was affected by COVID-19.

Key findings from the publication include:

• There were direct impacts of AU $1.7 billion, along with indirect impacts along supply chains resulting in $2.8 billion in total output losses and $1.6 billion in reduced consumption;
• Using IO analysis, we calculated significant spill-over costs, with total output losses being an increase of 61% on top of the direct damages identified;
• Invisible impacts of the fires were identified, such as in Tasmania, which did not suffer a direct loss in tourism but nonetheless lost 13 jobs overall, with its manufacturing sectors among the most impacted, because of tourism losses suffered in other parts of the country.