Locked down overseas, travel-hungry tourists pay for virtual trips to Australia

When Australia’s borders were shut to all international visitors in March last year, the outlook was grim for the local tourism industry — and the view wasn’t that great either for the millions of people overseas facing months of lockdown inside their homes.

But with a bit of ingenuity, a dash of desperation and a video camera, a new virtual tourism industry has emerged, with local tour guides taking locked-down international guests on virtual trips to some of Australia’s most spectacular sites.  

These “virtual tourists” are willing to pay for the experience of having an interactive, personalised tour of Australia despite being thousands of kilometres away.

Most of the clients desperate for a glimpse of the land down under hail…