The Covid-19 pandemic has turned the tourism industry on its head, and not all quieter-than-usual ‘hotspots’ are missing the crowds as much as might be expected.
While Victoria’s Great Ocean Road has seen a surge in Melburnians escaping the city after months of hard lockdown, they have not come close to replacing the international visitors who traditionally swamp the iconic route.
The ABC reports that, at the Great Ocean Road’s most famous attraction, the Twelve Apostles, the bus bay sits empty.
Parks Victoria said in December 2019, 518 coaches visited the site — but last December there were less than 100. Overall visitor numbers to the Twelve Apostles in the same period have also plummeted, from nearly 300,000 to less than 100,000.
But the lull has apparently led to a period of reflection for some along the Great Ocean Road.
President of the Apollo Bay Chamber of Commerce, Bob Knowles, told the ABC that some in the popular coastal town had come to lament the way same-day tourism had been operating in the region.
“When the buses stopped coming it gave us the opportunity to look and remind ourselves that absolutely everyone who lives and works in Apollo Bay loves the place,” Mr Knowles said. “You can’t share that affection in five minutes over a coffee, people need to actually hang around.”
Mr Knowles pointed out that ‘lots of people don’t necessarily miss the buses’ that clogged the roads and created an eyesore — but he sympathises with the businesses that have struggled to adapt.
“There are a couple of closed and empty shops at that end of town,” he said. “The Twelve Apostles were on the border of being overwhelmed, because of the queueing and the inadequacy of the basic facilities.”
Sally Cannon, the co-owner of the Apollo Bay bakery, told the ABC that many businesses, including her own, had suffered without the buses.
“It’s a double-edged sword — a lot of them were just passing through and not necessarily spending money in Apollo Bay, as well as putting a great strain on our tourism infrastructure, in particular the public toilets,” Ms Cannon said.
“It has given the government authorities time to look at what needs to be done to improve that infrastructure, so when they do return, we’re offering a much better product for them.”
The last time I was in Apollo Bay in 2019 I wouldn’t have recognised it as an Australian town. It was reminiscent of what Surfers Paradise was like some years back when the Japanese were the flavour of the month.
The shops were covered in Chinese writing and staffed by Chinese. The tour bus operators were all Asian and they only shopped in the Asian stores so I do worry about how some communities seem to sell their souls chasing the dollar.
It probably makes the Chinese tourist more comfortable to be able to talk with some-one in their own tongue but they would hardly get a taste of the Aussie culture that way.
It has been suggested that the tour operators insist their clients only spend their money in the Chinese operated stores but I can’t verify that.
Well the way it’s been going we won’t have to worry about Chinese tourists as there won’t be any!
We are in Marengo CP atm on our first MH trip from Melb. Have been down the GOR many times over the years and it always stuns me how spectacular it is. All the accommodation is full as far as I can tell but the roads are a delight – totally free of buses and cars :-).
We are having a ball!