Orange region features in Holiday Here This Year tourism campaign

Hamish Blake and Zoe Foster-Blake feature in the latest Tourism Australia campaign, Holiday Here This Year, launched by the federal government on Tuesday.

Orange is listed among the nation's top wine regions while the Orange FOOD Week is listed second, behind a Melbourne event, for Australia's best food and drink festivals.

Orange360 general manager Caddie Marshall said it was hoped it would encourage people to the region mid-week.

She said while the region's accommodation availability was tight on weekends there were vacancies mid-week.

Ms Marshall said people aged 55 and over, who had travel flexibility and could not go overseas due to COVID-19 restrictions, were being targetted for regional travel. "This is about filling up the mid-week trade," she said.

Ms Marshall praised the work of the FOOD Week organisers who had built up the festival over the past 30 years. She said they were planning for next year's event which is scheduled for April 9-18.

"Their enthusiasm is there, they're working hard to make sure there is a 30^th year," she said. "It's a peak time. It's one of our most spectacular times of the year visually."

She said accommodation shortages would ease with the opening of the Remington hotel at Bloomfield and the planned new Summer Centre hotel over the next two years.

She said people were also staying in nearby villages and farmstays.

Federal Tourism minister Simon Birmingham said the campaign was part of the government's coronavirus-recovery program.

"With our international borders expected to remain closed for the foreseeable future and the summer holidays only a couple of months away, this is a shout out to all Australians who are in a position to do so, to try something new and consider booking a holiday to a destination within Australia they have never been to before," he said.

"Tourism employs one in 13 Australians and is the backbone of so many businesses across Australia, but the industry has been hard hit by the COVID-19 crisis," Mr Birmingham said.