Tourism and business chiefs back plan to defer, rename AFL Grand Final holiday
There’s growing support to postpone and rename Victoria’s Grand Final holiday to provide a lifeline to devastated tourism businesses and kickstart regional economies. HAVE YOUR SAY
Victoria
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Postponing Victoria’s redundant Grand Final holiday and renaming it Getaway Day would provide a lifeline to devastated tourism businesses and kickstart regional economies, according to the state’s peak business body.
The idea has also gained the support of regional tourism authorities.
With the AFL Grand Final unable to be held in Victoria this year because of COVID-19 restrictions, it made sense for the public holiday in its honour to be repurposed and moved to a date people could travel more freely, Victorian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VECCI) chief Paul Guerra said.
VECCI’s first choice would be to see the holiday axed completely but if the State Government refused to cancel it, it made sense to shift the date and use it to support regional Victoria instead, he said.
“Let’s put it at a point where all Victorians can travel around the state . . . and use that as a stimulus to get people out and about,” Mr Guerra said.
Victorian Tourism Industry Council (VTIC) chief Felicia Mariani also backed the idea, saying anything which helped breathe life back into stricken regional tourism and hospitality businesses was welcome.
A travel voucher system - in which all Victorians were given a certain amount of money from the Government to spend in regional towns when restrictions were lifted - would also help, she said.
Recently rolled out in the Northern Territory and Tasmania, the system was proving a success in encouraging people to explore their own states and rebooting regional economies, Ms Mariani said.
“Tourism and hospitality are the lifeblood of many Victorian regional communities, that’s what feeds their economies and it’s their social fabric . . . and it’s been taken away for so long,” she said.
“My way of thinking is, it’s (the Grand Final holiday) a bit of a wasted public holiday because, at the end of the day, we can’t go anywhere and it’s not really going to help our tourism operators across the state.
“But if we had the ability to postpone it until November, it might actually mean people would be in a position to get out and travel . . . visit operators across Victoria that desperately need support.”
Ms Mariani said she hoped - when Victorians were allowed to travel again - they explored “their own beautiful backyard of Victoria”, before heading interstate or overseas.
East Gippsland Marketing manager Hayley Hardy said tourism and hospitality businesses in that region - which had been hit hard by drought and then bushfires - would love to see a Getaway Day declared.
“We would encourage the State Government to consider this idea to kickstart our local economy,” she said.
The call was echoed by Tourism North-East chief Bess Nolan Cook who said a holiday shift would be “a fantastic idea” and chief executive of Daylesford and Macedon Tourism, Steve Wroe, who said regional Victorians were “getting desperate to leave their home towns”.
“There’s a pent up demand that will take off,” he said.
Mayor of Ballarat Council Ben Taylor said changing the date of the Grand Final holiday was a matter for the State Government, “however, I would support any initiatives that encourage people to travel to regional Victoria when it is safe to do so”.
“Our economy has been hit very hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and we will need to kickstart our tourism, retail and hospitality sectors as soon as we possibly can,” Cr Taylor said.
A government spokesperson said: “The Grand Final Friday public holiday is always held the day before the Grand Final and it will be again this year - Victorians have worked so hard this year to fight the pandemic and have earned a day off.
“We’ll be encouraging Victorians to get out and enjoy the very best of our regional accommodation, produce, dining, experiences and attractions as soon as it’s safe to do so.”
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