There are more than 4500 empty resort beds in the Whitsundays alone and with no chance of international tourists for another year, the pain for far north Queensland’s rock star resorts is very real.

“I personally find it a bit much we are all Australians, and we’re stopped at state borders,” Morris told AFR Weekend on Friday from the Gold Coast, where he had just managed to fly to from Melbourne. “It’s hard to understand. People want certainty, businesses want certainty that’s what all politicians should understand.”
Local operators are hopeful that $99 Alliance flights from Brisbane to the Whitsundays, along with $69 Jetstar flights from Brisbane to Cairns, will be taken advantage of by Queenslanders to get out and about.
But Greg Magi, a Melbourne-based executive for Lizard Island Resort, points out that if the Queensland border stays shut, he has lost the June-October high season, when Australian guests to the area are mainly wealthy folks from Victoria and NSW. “It’s pretty frightening stuff, but we are hoping to at least reopen by September 1,” Magi says.
Morris agrees: “No one is really game to book from down south until the borders are opened. We are hoping to get more locals, which is why we are doing the special deals for Queenslanders. We are only doing that because the borders are closed.”
Morris, whose wealth was estimated at $1.13 billion last year, has been hit hard by the lockdowns, which shut down his extensive hotel, pub and property portfolio.
He made his fortune as the founder of share registry company Computershare and now has a lot of skin in the Queensland tourism game.
Apart from Orpheus Island, 80 kilometres north of Townsville, which he bought in 2011, he also owns Townsville Casino, Daintree Eco Lodge, the Nautilus Aviation helicopter fleet and a new resort at Mt Mulligan cattle station near Cairns.
Often billed as Australia’s answer to the Maldives (without the debt), far-north Queensland entrepreneurs like the Oatleys and Morris, plus American private investors Delaware North the operators of Lizard Island Resort have worked for decades to create an Australian world-class “sun and sand” luxury product that attracts the high-yielding international tourists who drive our $150 billion-a-year export tourism market.
At present, this region is losing around $10 million a day says Tourism Tropical North Queensland chief executive Mark Olsen.
At least 70 per cent of Lizard Island’s guests are international, led by the American and European markets, then South America.
“They’re gone until at least this time next year, if they’re even back then,” Magi says, pointing out that with the COVID-19 death rate in the United States of more than 110 000 people so far, it’s unlikely Australia will be welcoming American guests anytime soon.
Australian-owned Elysian Retreat in the Whitsundays says Queenslanders account for only 0.5 per cent of their guests.
COVID has been an extremely challenging time for our resort and staff; and for us personally.”
Elysian Retreat is reopening from 1st July, which is great. However, we need the borders to be reopened if we have any chance of keeping our business going, says owner Laureth Rumble.
On the upside, wealthy Australians are already booking post September with single bookings often stretching to six figures at Lizard Island.
“September seems to be the magic date,” Magi says, adding the resort is looking to reopen on September 1, or sooner if Queensland borders reopen in July. “Our next biggest market behind internationals is domestic out of Sydney and Melbourne. We need the borders open to get southerners up here.”
From September to December, Lizard Island is holding bookings of 25 to 30 per cent occupancy rates, including two families booking for seven nights at $100,000 and another group taking out 10 rooms for $150,000.
“The fear is we rely heavily on the international market is there going to be depth in the domestic market for all of us to have well-heeled domestic travellers through? We’re all competing for a much smaller market now.”
At least when the nation can get around again, Magi says his and other similar seculded havens have the ultimate selling point of difference.
“Our new pitch is: welcome to iso island”.