The ‘open-again, closed-again, open-again’ border restrictions merry-go-round is creating huge uncertainty for grey nomads and – not surprisingly – is continuing to hit the tourism industry across the country.
In Tasmania, Huon Valley Caravan Park owners Leanne and Rowen Carter said the relatively low numbers of mainland grey nomads in the park, was very unsual.
“We’ve seen nowhere near as many mainland visitors as usual … we’re actually down 50% on the same time last year,” Ms Carter told the Mercury newspaper. “Grey nomads usually arrive in the park a couple of weeks before Christmas because they want to be settled over that period but in the lead-up it was low compared to normal.”
Mr Carter said mainland tourists were ‘just not willing to take the risk’ of leaving their home state, as they could potentially have to quarantine for weeks if they’re locked out of certain states.
“It’s definitely the Covid fear,” he told the Mercury. “I think the outbreak in Victoria earlier in the year really put a dampener on everything, and then when that Northern Beaches cluster broke out in Sydney we had quite a few people call and say, ‘We know you don’t take bookings, but we wanted you to know that we’re not coming anyway’.”
On a brighter note, one positive side effect of the Covid restrictions has been to encourage more travellers to explore their home state. Nonetheless, Caravan Industry Association chief executive officer, Stuart Lamont, said the uplift in local caravanner numbers was not enough to sustain Tasmanian parks over what would normally be their peak summer period.
“What we’re seeing is the state government’s voucher system was successful in getting people thinking and moving around, but there’s just not enough population to sustain caravan parks,” he told the Mercury. “So, while national site occupancy was up by about 13% cent in December, Tassie was down about 24%.”
We will be staying in our home state of Qld. this year and possibly for the foreseeable future. We have internal border closures and Australians are banned from travelling overseas, but if you’re a celeb, a sportsperson or a foreign student, well come right in.
So will the vaccine give you freedom of travel regardless of restrictions ???
I could spend the next five years travelling my home State of Queensland and not see all that it has to offer. We already travelled to every State and done one “Big Lap” and we haven’t fully retired yet. Plenty to see and do where ever you are.The most under rated State in Australia is South Australia and we’d like to spend more time there soon.
We are definitely staying home in Tasmania this year due to the COVID uncertainty in relation constantly changing border rules. Last year we were caught out twice . The last one was South Australia which caused us problems in getting home to tassie.
We are planning a move from Qld to WA and will have to negotiate many borders on the way. Wish us luck.
We would normally head east (from WA) during March and return home late August. We would love to be able to travel east this year to catch up with old friends but will be staying here as the risk of getting “locked out” is too great.
We have travelled from Perth in our caravan & are now in Broken Hill heading to Brisbane as our destination (daughter&7 grandchildren there haven’t seen 13 months)we have made the choice to take the travel as it comes & accept whatever restrictions apply & do whatever is necessary to stay safe we have intentions of returning to WA in Dec. It has been quite most of the way so far unusual for this time of year.
I realise its many months since these comments have been made but I’m finding it difficult to get information regarding Christmas in Tasmania for this year. We are staying at the Hobart showgrounds for 6 nights from December 27th to hopefully see the yachts come in. We are trying to locate a Caravan Park that’s near a town where we can book a Christmas lunch. We can come from any direction as we have the time. We don’t want to be surrounded by small children and holidaying families so thinking inland and away from the East Coast. I anticipated that Tasmania would be teeming this year as we are travelling through Qld and it is crazy busy! Anyway, appreciate your thoughts if anyone is still out there on this topic.