The federal government is ramping-up pressure on the states to open their borders, releasing new modelling showing $55 billion could be wiped from Australia's tourism industry.
Australia's only state-based not-for-profit indigenous tourism association is rolling out its new strategy and calling for support from local WA business.
Domestic tourists spent $4.6 billion while visiting Western Australia in the year to September, which was 12 per cent more than the previous year and three times the average increase nationally.
The number of international visitors to Western Australia each year has surpassed 800,000, with the state again recording the highest average trip expenditure per visitor for the country.
Interstate business travel into Western Australia has fallen 6 per cent during the past year, and much of the blame is being sheeted home to the drop in resources activity.
