THE president of Albury Business Connect has played down the prospect of his organisation merging with its Wodonga counterpart, despite the groups working towards an "alliance".
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Barry Young was answering Albury councillor Henk van de Ven, who on Monday night asked whether he envisaged there would "ever be an Albury-Wodonga Business Chamber" one day.
Mr Young and business connect general manager Carrick Gill-Vallance were at an Albury Council briefing outlining their organisation's progress in the past year.
"We don't see a merger between Albury and Wodonga business chambers to be on the radar at any point at this time," Mr Young said.
"What we will continue to do is work on that alliance and build a stronger relationship, I think a merger is off the table."
Mr Young cited bureaucracy around forming a cross border chamber with Business Wodonga as the key obstacle to an amalgamation.
"I think there's too many stakeholders that need to sign off on it for a start," he said.
"It's a process, from our point of view, that is not workable at the moment, not to say that won't change down the track."
IN OTHER NEWS
Mr Young and Mr Gill-Vallance spruiked how well Albury Business Connect, formerly Albury Northside Chamber of Commerce, performed, despite the flux created by COVID-19.
Membership was at pre-pandemic levels, record entries were received for the Albury Wodonga Business Awards and there had been 95 media appearances to bring attention to the body.
An Albury CBD gift card program launched last September has seen 1117 vouchers worth more than $78,000 issued with around $35,000 redeemed through 730 transactions that average $48.
Mr Young, who has a homewares shop in Dean Street, said evidence showed the cards resulted in added spending at businesses.
"From my own point of view, I know that the smaller value gift cards of $25-$30 at least double their spend while in store and that sort of scales back as the value of the cards go up, but (there's) significantly more spend over and above the face value of those gift cards," Mr Young said.
He added traders had joined the scheme after seeing they were "missing out" when they could not redeem gift cards presented by shoppers.
