Peak tourism bodies launch alternative road map for indoor dining attractions
COVID marshals could be key to Melbourne’s hospitality and tourism industry reopening, with the state’s peak tourism bodies putting forward a bold plan to safely move forward.
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COVID marshals would patrol hospitality venues and events under a bold new plan advanced by the state’s peak tourism bodies, designed to get the industry safely moving again.
Employees dedicated to ensuring operations comply with health regulations, ‘COVID marshals’ had been successfully introduced elsewhere, Victorian tourism authorities said.
The industry wanted to see indoor dining soon, business events allowed from the end of October and outdoor attractions and venues open, with marshals on the job and strict caps and social distancing enforced, Victorian Tourism Industry Council (VTIC) chief Felicia Mariani said.
“Industry leaders have undertaken a detailed review of gradual reopenings underway in New South Wales, South Australia and Queensland, and have put forward an alternative road map for Victoria to allow business to resume operations under strict safety controls,” Ms Mariani said.
The industry was ready to “build slowly”, she said, adding indoor attractions, events with ticketed seating and business functions had more control over peoples’ movements and better information for contact tracing than supermarkets.
Chair of Meetings and Events Australia Kate Smith said reopening was critical for her sector, which once employed 85,000 people, including 3000 in the regions, but was “now looking at 12 months of close to zero revenue”.
“Business event organisers have cancelled, moved to virtual or have postponed
62 per cent of their business in the first quarter of 2021 and 57 per cent for the first half of 2021,” she said.
VTIC, together with the Accommodation Association of Australia, Australian Camps Association, Meetings and Events Australia, Tourism Accommodation Australia, Victorian Caravan Parks Association and regional tourism boards, had come up with the reopening plan, as an alternative to Premier Daniel Andrews ‘road map’, Ms Mariani said.
Within the industry’s proposed framework:
COVID marshals, as used in South Australia, would be nominated or employed in hospitality venues and at any event or activity “where there is onsite purchase and consumption of food and beverages”. If fewer than 200 patrons were expected, an existing staff member could add the role to their normal duties but if there were more than 200, a dedicated person had to be nominated to exclusively perform the job.
INDOOR dining would be allowed at the next easing of restrictions with a cap of 20 people seated inside per space, with up to two spaces per venue (for a maximum of 40 customers), under the one person per four square metre rule. If COVID case numbers stayed stable, it would increase to one person per two square metres, and later to no caps. Large venues seating more than 100 people would be able to negotiate reasonable caps.
BUSINESS events would operate with up to 50 people from October 30, on the one person per four square metre rule. All being well, the cap would be upped to 100 by December 1 and then again to one person per two square metres on January 1.
OPEN-AIR attractions and outdoor venues would operate subject to the one person per four square metre rule, with a family ‘bubble’ counting as one person, to allow operations like helicopters, hot air balloons, commercial tours and boat rides to be viable.
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