The government has confirmed that caps on international arrivals will be lifted once Australia hits the 80 per cent double dose COVID-19 vaccination milestone, by Christmas at the latest.

Australia’s Trade, Tourism and Investment Minister Dan Tehan reiterated the government’s commitment to the national plan to reopen international borders at a time when more than 43,000 Australian citizens remain stranded overseas. He urged Australians to get vaccinated so as to reach the threshold necessary to lift international caps and resume flights.

“Obviously with New Zealand we’re able to do that quarantine-free. It would be great if we could get that up and running again,” Mr Tehan said.

“Then we’re in discussion with the Pacific Islands, Singapore, Japan, South Korea, the US, the UK on what those travel arrangements will look like.”

For Grecian Tours Managing Director Kon Kavalakis, the opening of borders will mean a return to some sort of normality, bearing in mind his agency deals only with international flights. “We have had only minimal international travel over the last 18 months for compassionate cases or people travelling to Greece for good,” he said, pointing to Qantas having scheduled travel from 17-18 December. “It has been grim, and obviously to have a pathway towards travel is something we are looking forward to.”

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Christos Niaros of Helloworld in Oakleigh, said that the travel industry has been “struck the hardest by the pandemic, not just from the first night but from the first day”, he told Neos Kosmos. What has kept him going were the trickle of overseas flights on compassionate grounds and domestic travel, along with some funding.

“Australian citizens are travel-orientated either domestically or abroad to Mildura, Sydney, wherever,” he said, adding however that the lockdown further limited movement which during the pandemic has been for those with “huge resilience of soul and reserves of cash”.

Over the last 18 months, travel agents have had to navigate across different protocols in place across different countries as passengers have had to adhere to different rules even at airport transit.

“Imagine coming to Melbourne via Singapore and Perth and finding that Singapore is no longer accepting Australian passports and then landing in Perth to find out that Melbourne is in lockdown?” he said, pointing to just a mere fraction of what he has had to deal with. “Nothing is steady at the moment. Things keep changing. What applies today won’t apply tomorrow, in a month, in a year.”

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Mr Niaros said “vaccine passports” – something the federal government and Australian airlines are working towards – will need to be created before the dream becomes a reality and there are many complexities which need to be ironed out and protocols aligned for seamless, carefree travel.

Despite the opening of borders, Mr Kavalakis agrees it will take a while to get to 2019 levels. “Initially, a few countries will be flagged. Obviously there are alliances with the US and the UK, and Singapore is a hub for students so these markets will open first,’ he said, adding that it is unlikely that Greece will top the agenda. “At the end of the day, Greece is not considered a destination to visit in the middle of winter.”

He said that it will be a “slow process” but hopes that things will return to normal after March. As for prices, both Mr Niaros and Mr Kavalakis hope that there won’t be a huge increase from pre-pandemic levels.

“It depends on the volume of demand,” Mr Kavalakis said.

Mr Niaros hopes that people have learned from the pandemic that it is best to buy tickets from reputable sources, especially in cases when things go wrong.

They both hope that Mr Tehan’s comments will prove true “especially in the lead-up to Christmas” when Mr Tehan said “we’ll be able to see states and territories putting in place home quarantine arrangements for travelling returning Australians and they would be able to quarantine at home”.