MILDURA Regional Development (MRD) fears visitors to the region would view Victoria as “troublesome to visit” in the wake of the state’s snap seven-day lockdown announced on Thursday.
A steady stream of cars, many towing caravans, were seen heading out of Mildura yesterday following the Victorian Government return to stage 3 restrictions, which provide only the key four reasons to leave home as well as the added fifth reason to get a COVID-19 vaccination.
MRD chief executive Brett Millington said the move was “pretty disappointing”.
“Most people will be pretty shocked and certainly disappointed,” Mr Millington said.
“It has come out of the blue and particularly, again, the whole of the state (in lockdown), although we have seen some regional cases so I can understand the concern around that,” he said.
“It’s probably closer to home than it’s ever been to our region, but it’s still difficult to take.”
Mr Millington said the added difficulties for business and tourism were that the “backbone of support” through the JobKeeper was no longer available.
“We’ve gone through a period of relative stability and people had started to recover for a bit,” he said.
“But JobKeeper is not there now and there will be businesses, and in particular individuals, who will be stood down for the next five days or so.
“We look at the impact in terms of their ability to put food on the table, but also the support that council has had to provide in that past 12-month period in terms of food relief and the like, and that has certainly impacted significantly on their bottom line.
“It’s going to put another strain on for another five days at least, that’s for sure.”
Mr Millington said MRD would continue to provide support and continue promoting the Mildura region brand.
“Ultimately, the whole purpose of your marketing isn’t necessarily impacting in the next six or seven days — it’s more that longer term,” he said.
“But it does add a level of pressure because interstate visitors, in particular, will still see Victoria as a little bit more troublesome to visit than other places.
“You can only look at the number of caravans that are heading across the (George Chaffey) bridge at the moment … they are getting out of Mildura because of the restrictions that are going to be in place.
“It’s a little hard to take in regional Victoria when most of the activity is actually around Melbourne and we’re a long way from there.
“Having said that, there has been cases in regional Victoria so we can see how quickly that transfer can occur.”
