We know our Tourism and Hospitality industry has been one of the hardest hit through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Having extended our border restrictions until at least 1 December 2020, we will be doing more to help these critical sectors.

A series of support and incentive measures have been announced today to help drive intrastate visitation, and support and encourage Tasmanians to get out and experience their home state.

Tasmanians have been extremely supportive of local businesses already, with hotel and accommodation occupancy rates relatively strong during the recent school holidays and on the weekends.

However, we want Tasmanians enjoying everything our unique and beautiful state has to offer at all times, not just the weekend, ensuring we spread the benefits more widely and to all areas of the state.

Today, we are announcing that we’ll be introducing the ‘Make yourself at home travel voucher’, which means that across the months of September, October and November we’ll be making a total of $7.5 million available to encourage Tasmanians to travel outside of their municipality, to stay midweek in accommodation or to purchase a tourism experience for any day of the week.

The support will provide up to $100 towards the cost of a room in commercial accommodation, or up to $50 per booking to participate in a tourism experience whether that be a cruise, a walk or entry to an attraction such as the Port Arthur Historic Site or the Tahune Airwalk.

The voucher system is expected to support up to 25,000 bed nights or 50,000 tourism experiences each month.

We also want our local businesses to conduct their meetings or team building workshops away from their base in other parts of the state and they will be able to access this support as well to hold mini conferences and meetings.

I expect that after consultation occurs the guidelines and details of the booking system will be outlined before the end of this month for activation in September.