By Luke Voogt
A lack of clarity on Victoria’s road out of lockdown has left local businesses desperately trying to survive in the lurch, according to Geelong’s tourism board.
Tourism Greater Geelong and the Bellarine chief executive Brett Ince urged state and federal governments to provide a clearer roadmap out of lockdown.
“We know there are some businesses where this is crunch time,” he said.
“A detailed roadmap for the tourism and hospitality industry would provide some certainty for individual businesses to reopen.”
Earlier this week Premier Daniel Andrews said Victoria’s lockdown would ease slightly on September 23, with the state due to reach 70 per cent of people having received their first COVID-19 vaccine dose.
Mr Andrews also hinted lockdown could ease in regional Victoria next week.
But state government is yet to release case number thresholds or further details on vaccination targets.
“There’s some hope but it provides a lot of ambiguity because we don’t understand what that looks like yet,” Mr Ince said.
He compared the of lack clarity to state government’s roadmap out of lockdown last year, which included more specific targets and instructions on how restrictions would ease.
“From a tourism and hospitality perspective we were expecting a lot more detail,” he said.
“That’s what we thought was coming yesterday or today. Throughout the pandemic, this is the time that businesses have been most uncertain.”
The lack of detailed thresholds for metropolitan Melbourne has further increased the uncertainty for Geelong businesses, according to Mr Ince.
“We are so reliant on Melbourne as our main market,” he said.
While acknowledging various state government support for hospitality and tourism businesses, Mr Ince called for a similar scheme to the federal and NSW governments’ joint JobSaver subsidy.
“Whilst there is government support that is being provided right now, we’re hearing loud and clear that without wage subsidies … it’s going to be really difficult for businesses to get to the other side,” he said.
Mr Ince, who is plans to get his second AstraZeneca shot in a few weeks, urged locals get vaccinated.
“It’s really clear that the only way out of this is vaccination levels,” he said.
“It’s out best shot of travelling again.”
