He will be much more interested in any announcement from Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews, and his NSW counterpart Dominic Perrottet, regarding the travel rules for his metropolitan Melbourne clientele.
Mr McKenzie and his wife, Jacinta, own Echuca Luxury Houseboats and have endured a torturous 18 months at the hand of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Looking forward, however, the tourism business operators are hoping that vaccination levels in the Murray River Shire — and now Campaspe Shire — are enough for a release from lockdown and for travel to the border region to begin.
“We hope metropolitan Melbourne will be allowed into the region. I just hope that the Victorian Government is true to their word,” he said.
A Victorian Government pledge to release Melbourne from lockdown when the state hits its 80 per cent double vaccination milestone is expected to allow metropolitan travellers into the region from November 5.
There is, however, the matter of the two states aligning with their COVID-19 travel conditions, and Melburnians being allowed to travel to Moama.
“We expect people to be able to keep their bookings in November in line with the national roadmap,” Mr McKenzie said.
The McKenzies have operated the Echuca Luxury Houseboats business since 2003, a seven-boat fleet kept extremely busy all year-round by people keen to enjoy the expanses of the Murray River — and what both Victoria and NSW have to offer.
While he does not expect it to be easy, Mr McKenzie said the business was prepared to do whatever it had to in order to operate uninhibited during the summer of 2021.
“We’ve become the health police recently, having to check everyone’s vaccination status,” he said.
“It’s a bit of a minefield for small businesses at this point of time. If the two states aligned it would be amazing.
“Trying to navigate the rules in NSW with Victorian customers is quite tricky.
“But we believe, as best we can be, we are across them.”
Victorian and NSW residents planning to use the business can be confident that the couple are well in tune with the rules of the day, and more importantly, where people could get off the boat.
“It would be awesome if Victoria and NSW were on the same page,” Mr McKenzie said.
“With the vaccination rate in Murray River Council so massive, and Campaspe increasing its levels, we can’t wait for further announcements.”
Mr McKenzie said he could not explain just how important Melbourne’s patronage of the region was for business.
“Melbourne is massively important. It is what feeds the town.”
Echuca Luxury Houseboats has worked with its clients almost day in, day out since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
“We’ve been booked out for months, but these continuing rolling lockdowns are meaning a continual battle to fit in with customer needs,” Mr McKenzie said.
“We’ve spent three quarters of our time giving people the chance to change their bookings.”
At the moment the rules are as follows: Victorian people from one household can be on a boat, as long as they don’t get off on the NSW side, without having to be tested.
Regional NSW is now an orange zone, so regional Victorians can use the water course (river) and travel within regional NSW.
“There is no problem doing that, but you just need to isolate at home when you return to Victoria and provide a negative test before you can go out again,” he said.
