Accommodation providers in Moama are hoping the Victorian Government designates the remaining local government areas in the border bubble as green zones to revitalise tourism and give them the same respite as their counterparts in Echuca.
Victoria exits its lockdown at 11.59pm on Tuesday, ending restrictions on reasons for leaving your home and the 5km limit.
Four NSW local government areas — Wagga Wagga, Murrumbidgee, Lockhart and Hay — were stripped of border bubble status by the Victorian Government on Tuesday, and Premier Daniel Andrews foreshadowed more announcements about the border in coming days.
Echuca Moama Accommodation Association co-president Paul Lavars said while Echuca accommodation providers were overjoyed to be able to take bookings from Melburnian travellers, there was still confusion for those north of the border, who were unsure how they would be classified.
He praised the Victorian approach to quashing the latest outbreak but asked for border regions to be trusted to continue their months-long run without positive cases, and hoped the border wouldn’t shut completely.
“We’re all taking this seriously, no-one wants to be the town or pub which gets a case,” Mr Lavars said.
He said the region needed to be listed as a green zone to allow tourists from Victoria to come and spend time in Moama as well as Echuca.
“People from Melbourne or Geelong won’t be crossing the border if it’s an orange or red zone . . . tourists won’t want to do three or 12 days of quarantine and get tested [for a holiday],” Mr Lavars said.
“Because we’re hundreds of kilometres from some of the major population centres in NSW we don’t get people from Sydney, for example, and at the moment we don’t want them.
“Ninety-five per cent of our tourists are from Victoria.”
Mr Lavars is also the marketing manager at Rich River Golf Club and said just one of the club’s 63 rooms was currently occupied.
While members in Victoria could now return to the course and the restaurant, without Moama and the border bubble broadly changing to a green zone, the squeeze on accommodation was likely to continue.
Mr Lavars said conversations with Echuca accommodation providers on Tuesday had been far more positive.
People aren’t allowed to travel and share accommodation rooms with someone in their own household, but Mr Lavars said that wouldn’t put off as many people as it seemed.
“People will still go away, families will still travel and mates going on a golf weekend will just get separate rooms,” he said.
“But if they can’t cross the border that makes it harder — it cuts off a lot of services, some of the clubs and pubs and wineries on the NSW side of the border won’t be accessible unless [border bubble LGAs] are green zones.”
“Get us green and let us be the towns we are.”
Nonetheless, he said it was a positive step for accommodation providers that had been hit hard by yet another lockdown.
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