Tassie Holiday Vouchers scheme pumped $25-30m into state’s economy, government says

A travel voucher scheme aimed at luring mainlanders to Tasmania injected tens of millions of dollars into the state’s economy, the government has revealed.

THE state government has deemed its Tassie Holiday Voucher scheme a success, estimating it pumped as much as $30m into the state’s economy in the final months of 2021, boosting the struggling tourism industry.

But Tasmania’s peak tourism body said while the program served its purpose, the need for such initiatives has now passed, with the borders having opened and cheap domestic flights providing a sufficient incentive to travel.

The Tassie Holiday Voucher scheme was open to residents of Queensland, Western Australia and South Australia. There were up to 10,000 vouchers available, distributed via a random ballot and worth $300 each.

The vouchers could be used on eligible accommodation, tours and attractions between November 4 and December 31. Recipients were allowed $200 for accommodation and $100 to put towards tours or attractions.

The 10,000 tourism vouchers are estimated to have injected as much as $30m into the state. Picture: Tourism Australia

A government spokesman said interest in the voucher scheme had been “strong”, with more than 24,000 people registering for the ballot.

“The program saw more than 12,700 bookings made across the state utilising accommodation or experience vouchers, resulting in an estimated total spend by visitors of between $25 to $30 million into the Tasmanian economy during November and December,” the spokesman said.

A more detailed breakdown of the scheme will be prepared this month.

The Tassie Holiday Voucher scheme came in the wake of the three-round Travel Vouchers Tasmania program, which was designed to stimulate intrastate travel.

Tourism Industry Council Tasmania boss Luke Martin said he would be curious to know what the take-up rate was for the latest vouchers, which he described as “a pretty effective way of kicking things along in … compromised market conditions for visitations in the state”.

“I think we’re just curious to know how that one worked given it was pre-Christmas,” he said.

“It was a tough time, they were launched at the last minute, obviously there was Covid uncertainty in the country.”

TICT CEO Luke Martin. Picture: Chris Kidd

Mr Martin said there was “pent-up” travel demand across Australia and he hoped strong growth was on the horizon for the tourism industry “once we get past this current (Omicron) challenge”.

“Hopefully we don’t need to keep doing vouchers now,” he said.

Labor leader Rebecca White, who is also the party’s tourism spokeswoman, said the voucher scheme “appears to have worked reasonably well”.

While she agreed that a new voucher program wasn’t necessary, Ms White said Labor wanted to see the government provide further support to businesses and workers who had been “badly impacted since Peter Gutwein opened the borders to Covid”.

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