Border closures and international travel bans due to COVID have kept NSW visitors closer to home this year.

"We are all looking forward to seeing the end of this dreadful pandemic and the terrible loss and financial hardship it has caused across the world," said mayor Reg Kidd.

"If there's any good news to come out of it, it's that more people have discovered why Orange is a wonderful place to visit, any time of year.

"Nearly every weekend, for months, accommodation in Orange has been booked out, restaurants have been enjoying full dining rooms, accounting for the reduced number of seating permitted, and our local shops have been cashing in on the increased number of people in the streets and outlying villages."

Cr Kidd said "Orange has not seen this many visitors before and I'm expecting the numbers from this school holiday period to far exceed the July school holiday numbers, which were in themselves far in excess of previous years."

Over the long weekend, 2,736 people entered the visitors centre.

In the same period the year before there were 1,333 visitors.

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