Moira Shire local businesses to host Sun Country Discovery Weekend

The Sun Country Discovery Weekend will be held on the 24^th and 25^th July.

Over the weekend local businesses will offer local produce, coffee, wine, golfing packages and cactus tours, among other things, from as low as $1.

Deputy Mayor Julie Brooks encouraged people to come along.

"Even as a local I'm always astounded at the number of offerings, the number of truly innovative businesses that we have on our doorstep and we so seldomly take the opportunity to enjoy," she said.

She said the weekend promotion would help the businesses after what had been a horrible time during the pandemic.

"Without doubt it's been extraordinarily tough and I think in regional Victoria we've had a particularly tough time," she said.

"Especially the towns on the river because we've had the double whammy of being impacted by NSW lockdowns as well as Victorian lockdowns, so that's impacted us twice as hard as elsewhere.

"So many businesses over the last year and a half have done it very tough and I know we have lost a lot of local business from our communities just because they haven't been able to last the distance or they've struggled to get staff.

"Even though restrictions have lifted significantly, there are a lot of businesses that are still doing it tough, so I think this just offers a little bit of an opportunity to breathe a little bit of invigoration into their business and encourage some extra visitation."

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There are currently about 20 businesses signed up to participate in the promotion, but Ms Brooks said more were signing up.

She said the event would offer prizes as an incentive for people to visit more than on place.

"If people visit more than four businesses their name automatically goes into raffle, which is a wider competition, where there are bigger prizes to be won," she said.

"There is a little passport that you can get stamped at the various businesses that you visit and then that information will get sent into the shire, so the shire will have some really good data that they will be able to use to assess the success of the promotion."

She encouraged all business owners, tourists and residents to ensure they followed COVID-19 restrictions during the event.

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