The Responsible Visitation Campaign (RVC), which educates tourism operators and visitors about their role in keeping South Australian vines healthy, has been funded for another series of activities.

Financially supported by Primary Industries and Regions SA (PIRSA) and created and managed by Vinehealth Australia, the RVC is a vital campaign to protect South Australian vines from pests and diseases, in this era of rising biosecurity pressure due to increased tourism and trade.

An important part of the RVC is the Wine Tourism Biosecurity Program. More than 200 cellar door staff were trained in early 2018 in how to talk to visitors about keeping vines healthy.

From October 2018 to April 2019, Vinehealth Australia will be re-visiting South Australian wine regions delivering its popular training program. And this year, there will be a bigger focus on delivering training and campaign materials to tour companies, including bus tour operators.

This Wine Tourism Biosecurity Program is written to allow cellar door and tourism staff to easily apply the principles to their own situations. We give a range of scenarios and suggestions on how to handle tricky situations, plenty of dialogue staff can use when talking to visitors and lots of ideas for activities for visitors that won’t put the health of vines at risk.

Program summary

  • What are the key biosecurity risks for cellar doors?
  • What should cellar door and tourism staff say to tourists about biosecurity?
  • What simple biosecurity initiatives can cellar doors implement to reduce the risks?
  • What tools can Vinehealth Australia offer to support cellar doors?

Draft regional training schedule (to be confirmed)

  • Coonawarra: 23-25 October 2018
  • Barossa: 12-14 November 2018
  • McLaren Vale: 4-6 December 2018
  • Adelaide Hills and Langhorne Creek: 12-14 February 2019
  • Clare: 5-7 March 2019
  • Riverland: 26-28 March 2019

Vinehealth Australia will be offering webinar training for cellar door and tourism staff in other regions.

While in each region, Vinehealth will be running one-on-one training sessions with large cellar doors and tourism operations and group training sessions for smaller cellar doors and tourism operations.

If you’re interested in attending a session or participating in a webinar, email your details to admin@vinehealth.com.au