Australian tourism braced for hit from double whammy of bushfires and coronavirus

Tourism Australia said while bushfires damaged "brand Australia", coronavirus would be a global downturn, which could have an even worse impact.

Speaking in Canberra on Thursday, Tourism Australia managing director Phillipa Harrison said forward bookings in Australia had dropped 35 per cent.

It comes as travel from mainland China to Australia is currently banned.

China has the largest number of annual tourists to Australia, who also have the biggest expenditure spend.

Australia also recorded decreases in the number of international visitors during the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak in 2002 and 2003.

But this time it would also have to contend with the bad press from the recent bushfires.

During the bushfire crisis Tourism Australia estimated a $6.5 billion advertising equivalent in negative media coverage. Ms Harrison said while that spurred donations it did make people reluctant.

"International guests feel sorry for us but they are not coming here if they feel sorry for us," she said.

"They look elsewhere for an awesome, amazing experience."

A survey by Tourism Australia in international markets found in Western nations the awareness of the fires was close to 100 per cent and about 61 per cent of those surveyed thought more than one quarter of Australia was affected by bushfires.

International tourism to Australia was forecast to bring in $134 billion in 2020 but that is unlikely and the base would have to be reset, Ms Harrison said.

It is why Tourism Australia has turned its attention to the domestic market. The government agency recently released the campaign Holiday Here This Year after it received a $76 million government grant from the federal government's National Bushfire Recovery Fund.

Ms Harrison said domestic travel has had an uptick in recent weeks, and Canberra could profit from this.

"Canberra will benefit from the downturn in outbound travel," she said.

In the year ending September 2019, Canberra received 271,000 international visitors and they spent more than $600 million.

But China is the largest source country for international visitors to Canberra, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics figures.

Ms Harrison was in Canberra to give the keynote address at the Property Council of Australia's Hotel and Tourism Outlook.

She said Canberra had started to develop itself as a tourist destination in recent years.

"People know where Canberra is," she said.

She spoke about the decision to pull Tourism Australia's Matesong commercial in the United Kingdom, featuring Kylie Minogue, amid the bushfire crisis on New Year's Eve.

"It was tone deaf to leave something as nice and lovely as that to play out while media as showing images of burning animals," she said.

Ms Harrison said Tourism Australia would take more a "gentle tone" in upcoming advertisements and not the "glitzy" approach of previous campaigns such as last year's Crocodile Dundee revival or Matesong.