As the Omicron variant sweeps through multiple states and territories, a lot of tourism-reliant businesses are anxiously watching to see how grey nomads and other travellers are going to behave.
And the early signs are encouraging.
While many older people are understandably still cautious, there is also a lot of pent-up demand for those who have just been itching to get back on the open road and out into the regions.
Nowhere is that more true than in Victoria, a state has endured longer in lockdown than pretty much anywhere on the planet.
New data shows that regional Victoria is reporting a 200% increase in visitors compared to this time last year.
The Herald-Sun reports that, even towns that are not considered tourism hot spots, including Shepparton in the state’s north, are reporting influxes of people. It says Greater Shepparton City Council recorded a 275% increase in visitors to its visitor centre between Christmas and the New Year.
In central Victoria, Ballarat’s Art Gallery and Eureka Centre saw visitation numbers up 200% compared to the same time last summer.
“The entire local tourism industry has been working hard to position Ballarat as a highly attractive place to visit over summer,” acting City of Ballarat chief executive Matthew Wilson said.
Greater Bendigo Council said interest had almost doubled pre-Covid levels.
“In the same period, both this year and last year, we’ve averaged about 25,000 visits to our Bendigo Tourism website,” the acting manager for tourism and manager events, Glenn Harvey, told the Herald-Sun. “Pre-Covid and in the same period, visitation to the website sat at around 13,000 visits.”
He speculated that the growth might be due to people choosing not to go to busier beach locations, and also people wanting to make the most of being able to move around and see things they have missed.
Some border communities, however, have reported a ‘quieter than usual’ holiday period.
Mildura Regional Development chief executive Brett Millington told the Herald-Sun that, in the first few weeks of this month, there was lots of concern around Omicron which may have led to fewer visitors.
“Visitors were mostly coming from regional Victoria, we did see a few from Melbourne but not nearly as many from South Australia,” he said. “We are a tri-state area and the amount of visitors we saw coming from South Australia was down by about 20% compared to previous years.”
