Alpine resorts including Mount Hotham and Falls Creek have been given a school holidays boost with the Victorian government relaxing restrictions for the ski fields.
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After the Queen's Birthday long weekend official opening financial disaster, the resorts will open to Melbourne visitors on the condition they return a negative COVID-19 test 72 hours before their planned visit.
Victorian and NSW school holidays both begin in eight days and visitors only need to provide text message proof of a negative test to be allowed on the mountains.
The state's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said the "extra layer of precaution" was needed for the ski industry which was wiped out last year due to COVID.
"Even though the number (of cases) in Melbourne might by tiny, a single case, who is infectious up on the mountain, would be a potential super spreading event," he said.
"It's essentially how it spread across Europe in March last year and has been demonstrated in Whistler, Aspen, other West Coast Canadian towns where significant clusters have occurred."
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Zirky's Mount Hotham manager Annelies Zirknitzer said the announcement was welcomed, but queried the enforcement of ensuring visitors were COVID safe.
She flagged the possibility of checkpoints being created on the Harrietville and Omeo approaches to Mount Hotham.
"It's better than the alternative, but how it is actually going to operate, I have no idea," she said.
"We need more information firstly.
"But I think this will be all enforced by the resort management boards looking when people come through the gates so we as individual operators are not checking where people have come from and checking the validity of a COVID test in the last 72 hours.
"You also don't want cars banked up for three days wanting to get into the resort either."
Unrestricted travel between regional areas and Melbourne also resumes from midnight Thursday.
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