Slow spenders hold tight on half $12.5m travel vouchers

ALMOST half the value of the state government’s Make Yourself At Home travel voucher scheme has not been redeemed, with more than a month since the program ended.

The $12.5m worth of vouchers released in two rounds in September were snapped up within an hour each time.

They entitled individual Tasmanians to $100 for accommodation or $50 towards experiences, with families able to claim up to $550 in total.

A state government spokesman said on Thursday there had been more than 26,500 redemptions processed to the value of $6.65m.

“Tasmanians have been very supportive of the Make Yourself At Home Travel Voucher program and the project team are actively processing redemptions submitted over the Christmas period, with the expectation that all redemptions will be finalised in coming weeks,” he said.

“The additional spend generated has been an estimated $27.5m spend across Tasmania by travel voucher holders, with people spending on average more than $3 to every voucher dollar.

“Once the scheme is finalised we will discuss options with industry as to the best use of any remaining funds.”

Tourism Industry Council of Tasmania chief Luke Martin said he suspected much of the non-redeemed amount would be from people not using the full value of their vouchers as opposed to people not using them at all.

“Other states followed our lead and from what I’ve heard, we have had a good level of redemption comparatively,” he said.

“Some people will be disappointed to hear this because they missed out on the vouchers and that’s human nature.”

Mr Martin said the unspent funds needed to go towards restarting the visitor economy.

“We don’t want to see a repeat of the vouchers,” he said.

“We need to do something about helping the cities, which is something we’ve never experienced before, but we’ll talk with the government over the coming weeks.”