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Global youth travel company Contiki Tours has pulled the pin on Alice Springs as several other tour operators threaten to cut their stays in the Central Australian town.
Key points:
- Qantas's flight cuts have been blamed for a reduction in tour services to Alice Springs
- Tourism Central Australia chief executive Stephen Schwer said the town could lose thousands of nights of accommodation
- The Territory's Tourism Minister Lauren Moss said the Government was trying to get behind tourism operators during the tough period
The decision by several operators to cease stopovers in Alice Springs follows a move by Qantas to axe its flights from Cairns to Alice Springs and significantly reduce flights to Perth from April.
The town could lose thousands of nights of hotel bookings as a result, according to Tourism Central Australia.
TCA chief executive Stephen Schwer said it would have a significant impact on tourism in the region.
"We're trying to mitigate those impacts, because they are serious," Mr Schwer told ABC Alice Springs.
"The Reef, the Rock and the Harbour Bridge are the holy trinity of tourism in Australia and so that Cairns link is crucial for us."
He said several other tour companies were also considering cutting their stays in Alice Springs, which could be a huge blow for the local tourism economy.
"I'll put it this way, it is a significant impact … in the thousands of room nights.
"So what we need to do is chat with these inbound tour operators and work with them to change their itineraries."
Minister says Qantas cuts have hurt
Northern Territory Tourism Minister Lauren Moss acknowledged the Qantas cuts have impacted tourism operators.
"We never want to hear about any of those tourism operators pulling out of Alice Springs and it's really important that we get behind them at this time," Ms Moss said.
"It makes it all the more important for us to be building Alice Springs as a destination in its own right and really putting that case to the airlines about why they need to keep that frequency there."
Ms Moss said her department had met with Qantas about the cuts.
Contiki Tours has been contacted for comment.
Topics: tourism, travel-and-tourism, rural-tourism, air-transport, alice-springs-0870, yulara-0872, darwin-0800