Limestone Coast caravan parks are ready for a packed-out Christmas and New Year period.
Blue Lake Holiday Park owner Samantha Ham said the park had back-to-back bookings for accommodation and sites and had been practically fully booked since August/September, with only a few cancellations.
“Numbers are about the same, however people made their bookings much earlier,” Ms Ham said.
“We are getting multiple calls and emails daily asking for any availability.
“With the Murray River floods we are getting a lot of calls from people wanting to come to Mount Gambier because they can no longer go to the Riverland.”
Ms Ham said tourists were coming from all over Australia and the park was also beginning to see a trickle of international tourists.
“People are just so happy to be able to travel freely again after all the COVID restrictions of the last couple of years,” she said.
Beachport Southern Ocean Tourist Park manager Heidi Prouse said the park was fully booked over Christmas and New Year’s along with strong numbers for the VACSWIM week, which starts on January 9.
“We have got really good numbers pretty much right through January and obviously with the unfortunate river flooding we are getting more and more people trying to reschedule holidays,” Ms Prouse said.
“We are pretty much always booked out, we do have the same people that tend to book in year in, year out, especially for that first 10 days and then after that but it does open up for a lot of other people.”
Ms Prouse said she was excited to see the park regulars and tourists, which included lots of families with kids as the park was very family orientated.
“It starts revving up now, a lot of people drop their vans off before Boxing Day so then they just roll up on Boxing Day and all the hard work is done, so it is quite exciting seeing all the people and the faces of the regulars that come each year,” she said.
“I think this year overall has gone really fast for everyone, it has been an exhausting year for a lot of people, so everyone is ready to come down and holiday.”
