While Gunnedah hasn't seen the influx of tourists some Australian towns have, there are hopes they could benefit when the weather cools down and the silly season is out of the way.

Gunnedah Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Juliana McArthur is certainly pushing for that to happen, stating that while it's been a difficult year, the chamber's focus on the community has been stronger than ever.

"We've really focused on the local community this year, and a part of that is encouraging people to come visit, hopefully we've achieved a measure of that through the Christmas Fair campaign," she said.

"We, in conjunction with council, have also been promoting the Gunnedah Open For Business initiative.

"And, we're looking forward to the development of the Koala Park as we open up the economy again, once we've got a vaccine."

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Because of the restrictions introduced due to the pandemic, a lot of businesses had to move online, and this has expanded their presence, which can only be good when it comes to pushing tourism, Mrs McArthur said.

The chamber is encouraging people get out of the city, come and have a farm-stay, bring your caravan or travel around the state.

"Come through Gunnedah, come and see the beautiful ranges, spot a koala and find out for yourself just how good of a community we've got," she said.

"The Koala Capital title is a point of difference in the tourism market, we've got the painted silos around town, Dorothea Mackellar Memorial, the rural museum, the historical museum, the beautiful Naomi river and a fabulous landscape setting."

Despite all these attractions, local accommodation operators say bookings remain quite quiet over Christmas, with the easing of border restrictions coming as no benefit.

"In September, October, particularly around the long weekend it was busy," Gunnedah Tourist Caravan Park manager Pauly Mclean said.

"People were coming through heading out to Lightning Ridge and waiting for days to get out to the caravan parks out there."

Then, borders opened in time for Christmas, with heatwave conditions doing no favours for the town.

"Now people are coming through and saying 'I've got to go back to Victoria for Christmas' or 'we managed to get into Queensland', or 'the family is saying we have to come home'," Ms Mclean said.

"I believe that people will go to the coast for Christmas but when it cools down again we will have a good number of bookings from Easter onwards, especially over the winter."

On the other hand, local tourism operators were thankful for Gunnedah's versatile economy and the multiple industries such as mining, construction and agriculture which help prop up bookings year round, with a lot of contractors coming to town looking for a place to stay.

A recent report named Gunnedah as having one of the state's lowest rental vacancy rates - and while that presents its own crisis - it has also pushed contractors towards local accommodation services for short-term stays.