Asia-Pacific tourism makes patchy restart, and some missteps

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Tourism operators across Asia and the Pacific are making furtive and faltering advances, as well as some spectacular missteps, after travel was largely halted by the coronavirus pandemic that continues ebbing and mostly surging around the globe.

The Indonesian resort island of Bali tentatively opened to domestic visitors on Friday while struggling tourism businesses in Queensland, known as Australia’s Sunshine State, will soon lose visitors from the nation’s biggest city, Sydney.

With international travel heavily restricted, progress in reviving tourism has been at best anemic and usually perilous.

The perils became evident in Vietnam's popular beach destination of Da Nang, where an outbreak that began with one person last week has swelled to nearly 100 cases. Da Nang’s beaches, which host some 50,000 tourists daily during the high season, were emptied when the city was locked down Tuesday.

Queensland state, which is believed to be free of community transmission of the virus, has been allowing in all interstate travelers except those from coronavirus hot spot Victoria state.

While businesses lost visitors from Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city, at least they could look forward to Sydney residents escaping the Southern Hemisphere's winter for a tropical Great Barrier Reef vacation.

But a growing Sydney outbreak led the Queensland government to reconsider and Sydney visitors will now be banned from Saturday.

Queensland Tourism Industry Council deputy chief executive Brett Kapernick said the loss of Sydney visitors would cost some tourism operators 40% of their revenue.

“With this pandemic, the situation becomes fluid and therefore evolves weekly,” Kapernick said. “A week ago, we didn’t think we’d be facing a...