Rough road ahead for travel
THE region’s tourism and event sectors are facing a “long road to recovery” from COVID-19, with local industry leaders signalling further struggles ahead.
Great Ocean Road Regional Tourism general manager Liz Price and Tourism Greater Geelong and Bellarine executive director Brett Ince spoke on Wednesday as part of a parliamentary inquiry exploring the impact of the pandemic on the state’s tourism and event sectors.
The leaders said destinations and business will continue to face significant challenges with visitor spending levels not expected to reach pre-COVID levels until 2023-24.
Prior to COVID, the Great Ocean Road region received about 7.5 million visitors, with more than one million being international visitors.
In her submission to the inquiry, Ms Price said the next phase of recovery would be dependent on various factors including timing of snap lockdowns, international border openings, and cancellation of signature events.
“Snap border closures has dented interstate and intrastate consumer confidence and has resulted in a delay in consumers committing to plans,” she said.
“These delays make it more difficult for operators to plan ahead and resource their operations, often resulting in lastminute increases in visitation not being able to be capitalised on, ie. food and staff shortages.”
Ms Price said it was “critical” the government recognised how long recovery was going to take and that clarity was needed on how this may look in a “vaccine environment”.
“Recovery must be measured by return to visitor expenditure levels and not by measuring visitor numbers,” she said.
“As a region, a sector and a state, we have a long road to recovery.”
Ms Price said stimulus programs must be targeted to the sector and work to increasing overnight stays and expenditure, driving visitation midweek and though winter, and reigniting events.
In Greater Geelong, it is estimated the region’s once $1.1bn visitor economy is set to lose between $297m to $407m for the year ending on June 30.
Mr Ince said the industry had gone through “extreme and confronting challenges” and that more help was needed for it to adjust to a “new normal”.
“The pandemic has proven detrimental to the prosperity of the tourism industry within Greater Geelong forcing mass business closures, lost income and unemployment, all underpinned by great uncertainty,” he said.
“Significant investment needs to be made in the short and medium term to drive demand and reposition the state, and the regions within it, in the hearts and minds of domestic and eventually international travellers.
“What is certain is that tourism will not come back the same nor will traveller patterns, profiles and booking behaviours.”
Mr Ince said initiatives such as insurance support for events businesses, introducing an alternative to JobKeeper, and designing the regional travel voucher scheme to promote midweek stays could be some ways to aid recovery.
A legislative council committee will provide recommendations to the state government on the best way to restore the tourism and events sectors following the inquiry.