Limestone Coast retail and hospitality businesses are celebrating the tourism buzz this holiday season despite a later than usual start to the busy festive period by shoppers.
The business is expected to continue for the next few weeks with Victorian and South Australian students heading back to school on Tuesday, January 28.
Mount Gambier Chamber of Commerce president Candice Fennell said there had been an influx tourists retail shopping, buying food and beverages in hospitality venues and staying in local accommodation.
“It has definitely increased by way of the foot traffic around the community. There’s been a lot of feedback from business owners that what we saw as a lull coming into Christmas is peaking now,” she said.
“I have spoken with some retail and hospitality shop owners and all of them are giving feedback that it’s picking up and has picked up post-Christmas,” Ms Fennell said
“All of the business owners are finding that it has gotten busier from previous years too, which is good.
“Both councils make a considerable effort to attract more visitors to our area and I think that would certaintly be paying its dividends now.
“One of the things we know is beneficial for our overall community is a healthy business community and that is where we actually see people coming in, purchasing things, spending time in the places and going and visiting tourism hotspots which is really great.”
Ms Fennell said outlier areas and towns around the Limestone Coast including Port MacDonnell, Penola, Robe and Beachport are being visited and supported by visitors just as much as Mount Gambier.
“People are getting out and about everywhere at the moment,” she said.
“You are seeing campers at beach spots and things like that so I think they are really sharing and spending a lot of time in a lot of different places.
“Businesses are taking every advantage of the additional people around, who are spending locally, which is really lovely to see.”
Ms Fennell said despite the positivity there is concern and hesitancy by businesses about the first part of the year once the tourism traffic dies down.
“Hopefully what we have seen in the other years continues with leading not too far away into things like the Australia Day long weekend then we have got Anzac Day and Easter period with school holidays again so hopefully it flows on pretty nicely,” she said.
“It is a worry given there is lots of increases to business costs and a lot of challenges with getting labour as well.
“Something we do know about our local business community is everyone is very clever in their businesses; they have got good strategies in place and good business planning so they know how to operate their businesses to get the best bang for buck.”