Ballarat tourism providers disappointed to lose valuable Queen's Birthday weekend

Sovereign Hill has announced that it will remain closed until the Queen's Birthday long weekend following the confirmation of an extended Melbourne lockdown on Thursday.

The attraction will reopen again from 10am on Saturday, June 12 with all bookings up to and including Friday, June 11 to be cancelled with refunds automatically processed. All future bookings for dates from June 12 and onwards remain valid.

In a statement, Sovereign Hill said its Winter Wonderlights festival will go ahead as planned from Friday, June 25 to Sunday, July 18.

"The museum is taking these steps in line with government requirements as part of the Victorian response to contain the spread of coronavirus and is closely monitoring developments," the statement said.

"Regular updates will be provided through Sovereign Hill's website and social media channels. We look forward to welcoming visitors safely back to the museum on June 12."

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Ballarat's tourism industry will miss out on one of its busiest times of the year with Melburnians unable to make the trip west over the Queen's Birthday long weekend following the announcement of eased restrictions in regional Victoria.

While the lockdown is lifted in regional Victoria, it will will remain in place in Melbourne for an additional week with travel outside the metropolitan area restricted through the long weekend.

Ballarat's hotels and motels were booked out for the weekend with the city set to host a massive junior basketball tournament along with a range of other events.

On Wednesday afternoon, accommodation providers were flat out processing refunds for the hundreds of bookings they had taken across the weekend.

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Sovereign Park Motor Inn owner Tim Canny said as 80 or 90 per cent of Ballarat's visitors come from Melbourne, providers would take a significant hit over the next week or so and estimated his business would miss out of $50,000 in turnover.

"It's welcome news that the regions are open but it's heartbreaking to hear that Melbourne's still locked down for another week and also including the long weekend," he said.

"It's extra heartbreaking that this lockdown happens to go over this long weekend... it's now two years running that we're losing this huge weekend and it's an extra big kick in the guts this time."

Mr Canny said he was now worried about potentially losing staff in the long run.

"At the moment, we can't employ staff so I really do feel for our 23 casual workers, they're not getting any hours whatsoever so I think that they need to be remembered during all this as well as it's not just businesses that are suffering but it's a lot of employees that are suffering as well," he said.

"They might go and look for work elsewhere if this industry continues to suffer the way it is and that then puts more pressure and hurts businesses even more when they lose staff so there's a trickle-on effect."

While the Ballarat Wildlife Park will not be able to welcome visitors from Melbourne, managing director Greg Parker said he was 'cautiously excited' to be able to open the doors after a week in lockdown.

"Cautious is the important word because I still haven't had clarification of what it will actually mean to us at the gate. The easing of the restrictions is fairly broad and, at the moment, we don't really have the detail we need to really know what we'll be allowed to do on the day," he said.

"Just to have access to regional people will be a great help to us and we have very high overheads of animal care and it helps to keep our business afloat for sure. It's certainly not the ideal situation that we're in but it's encouraging that we'll be able to open in some capacity."

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