South Australia’s regional restaurants enjoy an intrastate tourism boom
South Australia’s regional diners are enjoying a post-COVID boom in business, thanks to travellers holidaying within the state.
Food & Wine
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SA’s regional restaurants are riding a post-COVID wave with big-spending intrastate travellers filling dining rooms and helping to boost finances after the shutdown earlier in the year.
Restaurateurs from Coffin Bay to Coonawarra; Kangaroo Island to Clare are reporting record bookings since reopening in the middle of winter – normally a quieter time of the year.
And they say diners are happy to lash out with the “holiday money” that might have been set aside for a more expensive trip interstate or overseas.
The findings tie in with the latest tourism data showing that South Australians took 63,000 more intrastate overnight trips in August than in the same month last year, filling the gap left by international and interstate tourists.
Business at many of the restaurants listed in the new delicious.SA: Regional 50, launched today, is exceeding all expectations, even allowing for reduced seating due to social distancing rules. The positive news cuts across all regions and different price points.
In the Barossa, the award-winning restaurant at Hentley Farm cellar door now has more people on the waiting list for its $180-a-head Discovery Menu than it has booked in to dine through to January.
The wine company’s founder, Keith Hentschke, says the demand for seats is not what he expected earlier in the year.
“We were concerned at what the state of fine dining at Hentley Farm would be during the COVID period,” he says. “Our guesstimate was that it would drop off. We thought people might not have money and might not travel.”
The forecast was one of the reasons that Hentley split its restaurant into two parts, with one offering wine tastings and quicker, cheaper snacks and meals.
“But if you go by the numbers, you would say fine dining has grown,” Hentschke says. “I suspect people are celebrating their freedom … their ability to get out and have an experience like this.”
Seats are also hard to come by at Hardy’s Verandah Restaurant, part of luxurious Mount Lofty House, where general manager Jesse Kornoff says the figures are 50 per cent up on HVR’s previous busiest ever month.
“We are seeing numbers and business that I didn’t think was possible,” he says. “When you consider the environment we are in it is nothing short of remarkable. A lot of people we are seeing have never travelled within SA before. They would normally have been somewhere like Tuscany or France or skiing in Colorado.”
It’s the same story across on Kangaroo Island, where Louis Lark, co-owner of popular Kingscote cafe Cactus, says “it has been by far our busiest winter to date”.
“It’s had a different feel being purely South Australian visitors instead of the mix we normally get,” he says. “It’s had a really good energy. People seem to be really on board with helping regional communities.” The boost in numbers is reassuring for Lark as Cactus prepares to shift to a new home on the same street with more space for diners and improved kitchen facilities.
The idyllic Eyre Peninsula town of Coffin Bay has seen a “massive upturn in tourism” since the end of lockdown, says Andy Williams, chef/co-owner of 1802 Oyster Bar.
“We’ve been doing four times our normal business, even more on certain weeks,” he says, adding that the school holidays in October were similar to the summer break when Coffin Bay is at its busiest.
South Australian Tourism Commission chief executive Rodney Harrex says the latest date shows local travellers are playing a key role in helping the state’s tourism sector on the path to recovery.
“Our world class food and wine continue to attract and entice visitors, as does the amazing accommodation offerings and iconic scenery we have in regional SA – it’s hard to not love what we have in our own backyard,” he says.
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