There’s been mixed reaction to the federal government’s major tourism package.

The price of nearly 800,000 tickets will be halved from April 1 as part of the $1.2 billion support package.

Queensland Tourism Industry Council CEO Daniel Gschwind said he was concerned that there are businesses at risk who won’t have any revenue impact for weeks or even months.

“We are happy for the airlines to get support and that’s a good thing and we are happy for consumers to get the cheap flights to numerous destinations,” he said.

“But we are still very concerned for the operators on the ground who have been struggling through this year and who are still struggling with the international borders closed that they will not get a timely enough reaction and timely enough positive impact from this as we had hoped for.”

He said they were hopeful a wage subsidy program or cash grants would be made available.

“The fear is that businesses will shed staff with skills that will not be there when a recovery becomes possible, when international borders open, they will struggle to get their businesses going if they lose too many staff in the meantime.”

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One of the criticisms is that the vouchers won’t include the route from Brisbane to Cairns.

Federal Tourism Minister Dan Tehan told Scott Emerson the idea was to encourage intra-state travel.

“I think it would be wonderful if the Queensland Premier backed this in by offering discounted tickets between Brisbane and Cairns.”

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Major route missed in government’s half-price flights ‘because that’s the way it is’