An artist's render of the PS Australian Star, set to launch from Echuca this spring with international interest.
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Australia’s first five-star overnight riverboat is set to debut this year, launching from Echuca in spring.
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Murray River Paddlesteamers director Craig Burgess said the $7 million PS Australian Star was currently being fitted out in Mildura, with the top deck going on next week.
Once the deck is prepared, the ship will be moved to Koondrook where its cabins, which are too tall to fit under some bridges along the Murray River, will be installed.
The Star was on show at the recent Australian Tourism Exchange in Brisbane, the country’s largest business-to-business industry event.
Mr Burgess said the MRPS team has attended the event for the past nine years to connect with buyers from across the globe.
MRPS director Craig Burgess, MRPS head of sales, marketing and trade Natalie Freeman, and Murray River Tourism Board chief executive Cameron Sutton at the Australian Tourism Exchange.
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“That’s all about putting the Murray River, the whole river, on the map,” he said.
“Most of the people we were meeting had never heard about Echuca, never heard about the Murray River.”
With the Star, Mr Burgess said the idea was to elevate the paddlesteamer experience to attract larger crowds to the area, including from overseas.
“And that’s exactly what has happened,” he said.
Multiple national and international travel agents have taken interest in the venture, with 85 per cent of bookings for the ship already sold out for next year.
“They see what we’re building, and they go ‘maybe we should be putting this on our brochures for Germany, for the UK, for the US, for Canada’,” Mr Burgess said.
The Star will be the largest paddlesteamer in the Southern Hemisphere once complete and run three-, four- and seven-night cruises from Echuca, offering a boost to tourism.
Following its early success, plans were recently announced for a twin-sister paddlesteamer, dubbed Australian Sky, to debut in Mildura in 2027.
The Sky will also offer three-, four- and seven-night cruises, along with trips to Adelaide over two months of the year.
Mr Burgess said the ships were part of a wider push to reimagine what the Murray River could offer to travellers.
“Our cruises are about nature and outback Australia. We don’t want to be like a European cruise,” he said.
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