South-west accommodation providers awaiting metro visitors not surprised by road map targets

They have described Premier Daniel Andrews road map, released on Sunday, as not surprising and are looking forward to the region opening up to metro guests.

Most of the COVID-19 restriction changes aren't expected until the end of October, with the region's providers having to wait until at least November 5, when the state is expected to reach 80 per cent double-dose vaccination rates, to welcome Melbourne guests.

Deep Blue Hotel and Hot Springs marketing manager Lauren Orero said its staff "was used to being thrown into pivot mode".

She said they'd had a number of school holiday cancellations following the news Geelong, the Surf Coast and Mitchell shires were entering a seven-day lockdown.

"It's hard to quantify because the cancellations will still be coming in, but since Sunday we've already had 147 room nights cancel for the hotel, which is 68 rooms and the hot springs has had 115 tickets cancelled already," Mrs Orero said.

She said its total September cancellations, which included people affected by Ballarat's earlier lockdown announcement, was 287 bookings or 578 room nights.

She said the Deep Blue owners also ran the Mid City Motel and its cancellations, since Sunday, would be similar.

"We just have to keep making amendments to our service availability and make sure that we're upholding our quality services for our existing clientele and people that are able to visit," Mrs Orero said.

Warrnambool's Eight Spence owner Sommer Jones said it was still very quiet and they'd had no cancellations as "everyone's booking last minute due to the uncertainty of what's going to happen."

She said the road map dates gave them time to prepare, as previously they weren't sure if Melbourne would be open by Christmas.

"It's nice to have some dates to work off to see when Melbourne will open up to regional Victoria because that's when our business increases," Mrs Jones said.

"We expect it will be pretty busy once Melbourne does open up and for that to be a pretty good recovery," she said.

Port Campbell Southern Ocean Motor Inn owner Asip Memishi said one room was occupied on Saturday. "It's not the best," he said. "We're really struggling at the moment. "This road map doesn't really help us at all. It's not that good to be honest."

Port Campbell's Port O Call owner Jarryd Watene said the motel was fairly quiet and he'd received cancellations from Geelong.

"It's just waiting patiently for those (vaccination) targets to be met and then seeing if everyone's keen to travel and come back down here.

"Financially its not the greatest time to be in business but my idea is if you can hold on until the summer time people will come back.

"If we can just hold on until summer we'll be fine," Mr Watene said.

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