Most Southern Gippsland tourism businesses began the summer season with a sense of real optimism. Forward bookings at accommodation places were looking particularly strong and for the year ended December 2019, Gippsland had recorded its highest ever visitor numbers. According to the latest Tourism Australia data, visitors to Gippsland grew by some 11 percent, with a 15 percent increase in spending. Our region was the second best performing tourism region in regional Victoria behind the Great Ocean Road. Things were looking very good – the national parks, restaurants, vineyard cellar doors and accommodation houses, both big and small, were set for a bonanza of a season. Destination Gippsland, the peak tourism body for our region, had played its part with a new brand (Gippsland – All kinds of wonder), a new website and a Destination Management Plan that had been praised as one of the most comprehensive and exciting plans produced by any region in Australia.

The South Gippsland visitor economy was set
to offer an exciting new chapter in our
region’s story with the potential for
significant job growth, prosperity and pride
for every small town and village across the
Shire.
However, January 2020 provided a taste of
the difficulties that lay ahead when heavy
smoke from severe bushfires in East
Gippsland forced the closure of many cellar
doors for several days.
Solid trading continued throughout February
and then suddenly, in mid-March, it all ended
with the Covid-19 shutdown. The impact of the pandemic on the tourism sector was swift and distressing – restaurants, accommodation houses, cellar door operations and our muchloved national parks were shut with no sign of re-opening.

But since the shutdown, it has been interesting to watch how many tourism operators in our region have created opportunities and, most importantly, continued to communicate with their customers and suppliers. In this new world of self-isolation and physical distancing, many tourism businesses have effectively ramped up their social media channels to stay in touch with their customers. There have been some outstanding local examples of tourism businesses that have made the best of a worst possible business scenario. In the small, resilient town of Meeniyan, Trulli Pizza rolled out a mobile pizza oven with a scheduled program of visits to key points in the district. Moos at Meeniyan were inundated with orders for a takeaway Mother’s Day luncheon, and Pandersol Bakery, in a throwback to the 1960s, started a bread home-delivery service. Leongatha’s Lucinda Estate Winery hosted a weekly online tasting segment to keep customers on their radar. The Fish Creek Hotel and the Foster Golf Club swiftly moved to provide an excellent take away dinner menu.