MILDURA is well poised to reap the benefits of a proposed easing of travel restrictions for Melburnians, according to the region’s peak tourism body.
A “ring of steel” preventing Melbourne residents travelling into the regions will be removed from November 8 if COVID-19 cases continue to remain low, allowing unrestricted travel for all Victorians within the state.
Regional Victorians are able to travel to other regions, however Mildura Regional Development chief executive Brett Millington said the further easing of restrictions in metropolitan Melbourne could be a boon for north-west Victoria.
“That pent-up demand in Melbourne is going to be quite significant,” Mr Millington said.
“Being able to deal with that influx of numbers, plus maintain that at that level of scrutiny, will be important to do first and then it’s really let’s go as hard as we can and attract the markets that are out there, as in the grey nomads and the like.
“Most people are in the right space around what COVID-safe is, but there’s a little bit of work to be done to make sure that once we start expanding numbers there will still be that need to maintain some form of COVID records.”
Mr Millington said recent and ongoing promotion for the region would hold it in good stead once metropolitan Melbourne residents could again travel to country areas.
“We have been really focused on making sure that when Melburnians get to see the Mildura brand fairly regularly on the television through the AFL campaign or Bathurst (Mildura’s Cameron Waters’ car branding) and be able to make that connection,” he said.
“We have also just launched our new website for that very reason, so ‘Visit Mildura’ is up and about and as part of our ‘Start Here’ campaign we’ve got a series of buses out in Sydney, Adelaide, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth at the moment which have got the Mildura branding all over them.
“Last week, at the Port Adelaide and Richmond AFL game, our ad was playing on the big screen a number of times throughout the night as well as the other finals and we had full-page ads in each of the footy records.”
Mr Millington said he also expected a changing landscape with industries and Melbourne residents looking to move permanently to regional Victoria.
“There’s going to be a truckload of people who say, ‘There is no way I want to stay in Melbourne’,” he said.
“Regional cities close to Melbourne have already seen this influx of people.
“People are going to start to buy places almost sight-unseen and say, ‘I’ve proven that I don’t need to be in the office to work there, I can relocate to a regional area, I can be out waterskiing at 5.30pm instead of sitting on the South Eastern Freeway’.
“That then introduces this whole other new set of opportunities, once you introduce new businesses and skill sets and what other things might transfer here.
“There are all of those things that are starting to come together and finally we’re starting to see a lot of positivity out there.”
