Kangaroo Valley Safaris and many businesses like it will be forced to close on the day of the L'Étape bike race.
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The cycling event, which has a 136km race and a separate 80km ride starting in Kiama, traverses the northern Shoalhaven, forcing a number of local road closures.
The kayaking business stands to lose 80 per cent of its weekly takings according to owner Glyn Stones.
Mr Stones's business cannot operate on Saturday, March 20 due to planned closures of Kangaroo Valley and Moss Vale roads from 5am until 12.30pm.
This is when all of his weekend guests come to do their overnight trips and day trips on the river.
The business stands to take a $14,000 revenue hit as a result of the road closure.
Mr Stones and his family are trying to get Shoalhaven City Council, through council's insurance policy, to compensate the business for its loss of earnings.
"It's not only us, there are wedding venues in the Valley who are being affected.," Glyn said.
"And it's not just Kangaroo Valley, you've got Gerroa and Gerringong residents who won't be able to get out onto the main road.
"You've got Minnamurra Rainforest and Fitzroy Falls visitor centre that has had to close for the day. There's a lot in this.
"I reckon it's costing the area hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"Nobody can get into the place before lunch. Fitzroy Falls will be closed until 2pm which will mean there will be a hell of a backup of traffic of people trying to get down the South Coast. It could take hours."
Glyn and his business was offered a feature on an SBS documentary to be aired during the event but the offer was declined.
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Mr Stones's son Martin said their business sustained itself through word of mouth and a feature on SBS would have little impact.
"As a business we are actually busy enough not to have to advertise. We've been running for 30 years and we don't need the SBS advertising to be honest."
The Stoneses have been airing concerns about the event for a month. They said the organisers had been unhelpful in addressing their concerns.
"You're just dealing with these massive international promoters who have no care about what happens in small villages."
They said Shoalhaven City Council had not properly consulted with the community over the and impact of the event.
"They've snuck it through an ordinary meeting without putting in any public consultation Martin Stones said.
Glyn Stones is concerned about the effect the closures will have on his eight casual employees.
"They will not be getting paid. They're casuals and there's no work," he said.
He said his employees normally make $300 on a Saturday which would normally go towards their week's rent.
"And it's not just our employees. It's not just 40 casual staff in Kangaroo Valley who will not be getting paid on Saturday."
Each edition, including those held in Jindabyne, has been organised by Lateral Event Management.
Lateral Events Head of Sport Florent Malézieux said Mr Stones declined the chance to be broadcast to millions of viewers on SBS.
"When you are presented with an advertising opportunity like this, usually you don't let it go. He did," Mr Malézieux said:
"I would have embraced the event and set up something on the side of the road so the 4000 riders will have seen that you can kayak there.
"I would have reached out to the organisers and asked them, 'You know what, on the day of the event it is going to be tough for me but would you mind advertising the fact that I have a kayaking business? And I would be happy to maybe put an offer to your riders.'
"It could say maybe, 'Book with the code L'Étape and receive a $10 discount or whatever."
Mr Malézieux said local businesses affected by the closures "have to see the bigger picture because the event will bring 4000 participants to the region".
"The way to leverage an event like the Tour de France coming to your town is actually to do exactly the same as what you can see [business owners] do on television during the Tour de France," he said.
"You clean up your window, you make sure you have special offers for Tour de France fans and you create goodwill for the riders.
"If the riders go to a village and they see that people have yellow flags everywhere, they're super happy to see them and maybe they have a Tour de France sandwich menu or whatever your business is, then [the riders] will come back and have a good time and keep a good memory of those places.
"And this will also compensate for the reduced business income for that day."
Mr Malézieux said businesses didn't have to close on that day.
"For example, towns like Berry will remain accessible at all times during the weekend," he said.
"It's difficult to understand what L'Étape is until you actually see it. We faced that in Jindabyne. A lot of business owners said, 'We are a snow town, we know what receiving a lot of visitation means and we won't open for your small event in summer.'"
He said businesses in Jindabyne went from being seasonal to year-round operations after L'Etape went through.
"The whole purpose of the event is to showcase the region to those riders so they come back with their cycling mates to ride their bike but also with their families to spend more time in the region.
"We work very closely with Destination NSW and we send content to our audience to explain to them what we can do in the region and why they should go to the South Coast.
"We are working with the Tour de France, the biggest sporting event in the world. If the Tour de France trusts us, I believe the local community can trust us as well."
According to Mr Malézieux, there will be no impact on emergency services, with representatives from NSW Police, NSW Ambulance, the RFS, Fire and Rescue and Triple zero in the Kiama command centre.
"If something happens to a rider we have dedicated resources from NSW Ambulance and from a private medical contractor," he said.
"They will look after the riders without using resources that normally look after the community.
"I would even say that on the day of the event you are even safer than usual because in addition to the normal services we add our own services and some resources from NSW Ambulances, RFS and Fire & Rescue to make sure that they can interact with the public if something happens.
"If an ambulance needs to access a place we can give them an escort and they can access even quicker than usual.
"If for any reason the ambulance is slightly delayed, we have the possibility to use the resources that are normally dedicated to the riders."
Mr Malézieux said a medical emergency involving a resident on the course occurred in Jindabyne once before.
"We had a spectator having cardiac arrest. Accessing the spectator wasn't impacted by the event but it was far away from where the NSW Ambulance was and we had one of our ambulances very close to that person," he said.
"We sent our own ambulance to look after that person until the NSW Ambulance came and evacuated that person to the nearest hospital."
Mr Malézieux said a similar process was in place for if there is a veterinary emergency on a closed road.
Mr Malézieux said L'Étape Australia was here to stay and will not have one event and go away somewhere else.
Another L'Étape Australia event is planned for December 2021 and again in 2022 if it receives council approval.