The return of international tourists to Australia after two years is hoped to boost confidence within the tourism industry.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced on Monday all fully vaccinated visa holders would be granted entry into the country from February 21.
It was welcome news for Helloworld Travel Albury owner and manager Renee Nightingale.
"We had been waiting for the announcement," she said.
"Tourists coming in doesn't do much for an individual travel agency, but hopefully it will bring that consumer confidence.
"People seeing internationals arriving will hopefully have the confidence to go back out of our country as well.
"We have been booking a little bit of Europe, a little bit of the USA - your mainstream trips not too far off the beaten track, and there's still countries that we can't get into.
"From May onwards, we're quite confident that you'll be travelling quite normally, but there is plenty of restrictions and things that you've got to be aware of."
Wodonga mayor Kevin Poulton also welcomed the news of the return of international tourists.
"Hopefully it encourages Western Australia to open their borders," he said.
"There will be many people that will be happy to see the visitors return, particularly in our region."
Victorian Tourism Industry Council chief executive Felicia Mariani said reopening to overseas visitors was critical for recovery of the industry.
"Spend from international visitors made up nearly a third of Victoria's total tourism income at the end of 2019," she said.
"Over $9 billion in international visitor spend has disappeared from the tourism economy over the past two years while borders were closed."
Borders shut in March, 2020 and there have been 580,000 arrivals since a staged reopening on November 1.
Domestically, the reopening of Queensland's borders from December was an important step forward for Ms Nightingale.
"Once Queensland opened that was a bit of a 'hallelujah', and once we dropped the rapid antigen tests and the border passes that made things a lot easier," she said.
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"It has been slow because people are really apprehensive, particularly Victorians; they were locked down for so much of the last few years.
"We're seeing the Albury clientele have been more willing to move, whereas Victorians were still a little bit gun-shy.
"It's been a really long two years, but we're slowly starting to see that the end is near."
