CANCEL CULTURE
We had decided to take Scomo s advice and holiday here this year , booking flights and accommodation from Sydney for one week in Darwin, followed by four days in Uluru. All bookings for two couples were completed in early February. We received a credit notice from Qantas on March 22 saying our confirmed flights from Alice Springs to Uluru were cancelled due to COVID-19. On further investigation they had also cancelled our earlier flights from Darwin to Alice Springs on that day.
On checking the Qantas website, the flight from Darwin to Alice Springs is still flying, and we were able to rebook our seats on that flight with the credit note. However there are no flights from Alice Springs to Uluru. This seems ridiculous. Surely all travellers to Uluru are not coming out of Sydney or Melbourne direct?
HIRE AND HIGHER
Some close friends are going to holiday in the Apple Isle in the next few weeks. They were able to secure flights and accommodation for reasonable prices, but were stunned at the cost of car hire. It is near impossible to secure basic car hire for less than $1000 a week which makes a fly-drive holiday rather expensive. I can t recall car hire being that expensive pre-COVID and wonder if this is just car rental companies taking advantage of travel starved Australians.
Peter Miniutti, Ashbury, NSW
OVERSEAS V OVER HERE
If Australian tourism operators want Australian residents to travel locally after the pandemic then they should look to lower prices. What they offer in terms of value for money does not come close to what overseas operators are able to provide. And then local businesses wonder why we spend our money overseas. The reason is because it s cheaper to pay for flights and accommodation and activities to go overseas than it is to travel around most places i