WHILE border closures and Victoria’s second coronavirus surge was bad news for Sunraysia’s tourism industry, owners of a local travel business said their winter season has been nothing but smooth sailing.
Marina and Chris Durban have run their tourism business, Mildura Houseboats, for 20 years.
They said this winter had been one of the busiest they had ever experienced, with bookings from travellers across Victoria and New South Wales keen to take a cruise along the Murray River.
Ms Durban on Thursday said the New South Wales border closure had not affected bookings in any way, with the business continuing to send customers out from its mooring sites on either side of the river.
Instead, she said the business had fielded cancellations from customers in central Melbourne, who can no longer travel due to the six-week lockdown enforced on Wednesday.
But, Dr Durban said those vacancies had been quickly filled by locals and other travellers from country Victoria and NSW wanting to make the most of the school holidays.
“The demand has just skyrocketed,” he said.
“People can’t travel overseas at the moment, so they’re looking at what they can do locally.”
He said while summer and holiday periods, like Christmas, Easter and Melbourne Cup weekend, had usually been the business’ peak times, they were experiencing the same number of bookings through the rest of winter and early spring.
Mr Durban said he had purchased two new houseboats in the last month, taking their existing fleet to 16, to keep up with the anticipated demand.
“The cruises run anywhere between three and seven nights, but people have actually been asking to extend their journey,” he said.
“We just hope the interest continues to grow.”
He said the business had taken a battering earlier in the year, having missed the Easter school holiday period due to coronavirus restrictions, but things had been back up and running for a few weeks.
“It’s business as usual now,” he said.
“We’re just going to keep cruising until we’re told we can’t.”
