Yarrawonga Chronicle

Restrictions likely to be lifted

The lifting of the 25km travel limit, designed to stop Melburnians escaping to regional Victoria for the Queen’s Birthday long weekend, is likely to be lifted by the this weekend.

The lifting of restrictions will be a major boost for local businesses ahead of the school holidays, which begins a week from this Friday.

Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley would not commit on Tuesday on the easing of any restrictions, saying it would be considered on a “day by day” basis, pending any shock spikes in COVID-19 infections.

Meanwhile, local tourism businesses will benefit from a new round of travel vouchers as part of a package of support to boost tourism recovery in regional Victoria.

The latest round of regional travel vouchers will encourage Victorians to support attractions and accommodation providers across the state once it is safe to do so.

Victorians will have access to 80,000 regional travel vouchers valued at $200 each to help operators affected by the current restrictions recover strongly.

Acting Premier James Merlino said regional Victoria has suffered greatly with numerous lockdowns and Melburnians not able to visit so hopefully these travel vouchers help.

“The effort to combat this outbreak makes a call on all of us – and we know that means a significant pause in the steady recovery being experienced in our tourism sector, especially across regional Victoria,” Mr Merlino said.

The $32.2 million Regional Tourism Support Package will also provide accommodation, attraction and experience providers with grant top-ups worth up to $4,500 per business, while alpine businesses will receive up to $15,000 to help them provide a COVIDSafe ski season.

A $16 million investment will fund a fourth release of popular regional travel vouchers – 10,000 new vouchers and 70,000 vouchers allocated through previous rounds but not claimed. A release date for the vouchers and travel windows will be advised in due course.

Victorians snapped up 160,000 regional travel vouchers during the first three rounds of the Regional Travel Voucher Scheme and 40,000 for the Melbourne Travel Voucher Scheme.

More than 88,000 regional vouchers have been claimed so far, with those travellers injecting an estimated $130 million into local economies.

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2021-06-16T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-06-16T07:00:00.0000000Z

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