The owner of the Wildginger restaurant in Huskisson is urging people to visit the town over the long weekend to help it bounce back from a recent COVID exposure.
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Kierrin McKnight said he had noticed a decline in phone bookings over the last week but he wanted to let the community know the town was open for business as there were no positive cases of COVID detected in the region despite thousands of tests.
"The whole weekend alone was very scarce and a bit of a ghost town," he said.
He said his restaurant had been at full capacity for 40 weeks but dropped to 25 per cent over the weekend - a decline he said also happened to neighbouring businesses.
"So I think we have to make sure we bounce back as a community before it goes on any longer," he said.
Why get shot in the foot when we didn't actually have any positive cases?
- Kierrin McKnight - owner of Wildginger
Back in August of last year, Wildginger shut its doors for two weeks after it was visited by a confirmed case of COVID, causing staff to have to go into self-isolation.
"We had a bit more of a sinister scenario which affected our business immensely," he said.
"But we did bounce back and it was a very strong summer because I think people from Sydney are realising that Jervis Bay is only a couple of hours down the coast. And it helps that people haven't been able to fly to other countries.
"It's close to the strongest year to date and I'm pretty sure I'm talking on behalf of a few other businesses."
He said the town of Huskisson had a beautiful community and that this hiccup of a decline in visitors had to be squashed on the head because nothing good had come of it.
On the accommodation front, a different story was painted by Bookings Manger from Jervis Bay Rentals Caroline Roberts.
"When we had the COVID scare, we probably had about three or four people calling to postpone their dates just because it was unknown whether there were any positive cases," she said.
"We still had people who arrived and stayed over the weekend and school holidays are looking good with bookings so nothing has really changed from our perspective.
"What we've sort of found is that each time something like this happens, whether locally or in Sydney, is that people are now starting to wait as long as they can and they're not just jumping the gun and cancelling."
But the owner of Sandbar Restaurant and Bar and the adjacent Huskisson Beach Motel said he had lost some accommodation bookings since the COVID scare.
John Nixon said one factor which he believed caused an increase in vacancies since the scare was the idea that holidaymakers were booking their accommodation much closer to the date due to COVID concerns.
"People used to book their holidays months in advance; they only do it a couple of days before now."
He said the restaurant side of his business had not been noticeably effected since the coronavirus scare partly because it was a quieter winter period and the restaurant had been experiencing support from locals.
He also urged people to come back to Huskisson to support its businesses.
