MILDURA Regional Development chief executive Brett Millington has tentatively welcomed a Victorian Government travel voucher package announced on Sunday.
Victorians who spend $400 or more on paid accommodation, experiences, tours or attractions will have access to one of 80,000 regional travel vouchers valued at $200 each under the package.
This is the fourth release of the scheme, and will include 10,000 new vouchers at a cost of $2 million.
A total of 70,000 unclaimed vouchers from previous rounds will be re-released.
The Regional Tourism Support Package also provides $11.8 million to support eligible Victorian tourism businesses with grant top-ups for the current Business Costs Assistance Program.
Eligible regional tourism businesses will receive a top-up payment of $4500 in addition to the $2500 they received when the second round of the Business Costs Assistance Program was announced last week.
To be eligible, a business must be registered for GST and have less than $10 million in turnover.
Mr Millington said the announcement was “at least an attempt to start to understand some of the challenges of the lockdown that have been faced by border communities and regional communities in general”.
“It at least gives us some way of getting a little bit of that ground back that has been lost for a week of lockdown,” he said.
But Mildura didn’t see the full benefit of the first round of travel vouchers, he said.
“It comes down to timing. If (the travel window is) around the school holiday period, then we’re more likely to get some value out of it.”
For businesses on the NSW side of the border, still reeling from new NSW Government restrictions on Victorian customers, the announcement could come as a double blow.
On Friday the NSW Government announced Victorians were barred from all but but essential activities in the state.
Mr Millington said the NSW Government “needs to review” the constraints.
Businesses along the Murray River have called for financial relief from the NSW Government to help make up the cost of the ban on Victorian customers.
For businesses in Victoria, Mr Millington hoped the announcement could “bring back confidence”.
“So we know that the last round of the tourism voucher scheme has been very successful in terms of selling out very quickly,” he said.
“What we hope is that that translates into people actually getting out into the regions.”
In a statement, Acting Premier James Merlino said: “The effort to combat this outbreak makes a call on all of us – and we know that means a significant pause in the steady recovery being experienced in our tourism sector, especially across regional Victoria.
“Today we’re showing regional tourism businesses and their workers that we understand the pressures they face.”
A release date for the vouchers and travel windows has not yet been announced.
