Great Lakes tourism and marketing coordinator, Sharon Bultitude said it had been extremely busy across the entire region.  

“I think it’s a combination of things. We do have a lot of repeat visitors - people who have been coming back to the region for 20 to 30 years and then people who are discovering the area,” she said. 

“We have really pushed marketing not just for Forster Tuncurry but for all of Myall Lakes online through the website and social media, especially re-engaging with those people who continue to come back and reminding them why. 

“Everything is more digital now - it’s more personal. This year we’ve already had a 25 per cent increase in our website traffic.” 

The Great Lakes attracts just over 1 million visitors each year, injecting $374 million into the local economy, Ms Bultitude said. 

This summer period alone will see over half of the regions total yearly visitation. That’s $200 million of expenditure, which equates to $568,000 per day and an astounding $24,000 per hour. 

Ms Bultitude said the region’s international visitor base is growing each year especially with Europeans  but is made up mostly of domestic travellers from the southern parts of the state. 

Beaches International manager Greg Randall said summer so far had been wonderful. 

“It’s been very busy but even before then we have been heavily booked – since September we haven’t clipped below 90 per cent,” he said. 

“The beach carpark near the surf club was full to brim from 9am everyday. I have never seen it like that before.” 

Mr Randall said his guests were predominately coming from the city but in the last few years a lot of regional areas in the North West as well. 

“We’ve mainly had people from Sydney but also Narrabri, Tamworth and Boggabri – I’m not sure why but in the last few years those areas have really picked up. We have people coming, especially from Tamworth, all the time.”