Tamworth tourism: Nundle, Manilla and Bendemeer packed with visitors at the Easter long weekend

A crowd of nearly 200 people piled into Manilla's caravan park ahead of the Paragliding State of Origin event, as staff scrambled to bring in two extra barbecues and a firepit to meet the demand.

A normal weekend would see around 10 to 15 vans at Rivergums, acting manager Barry Passfield said.

"We had 44 caravans, 39 tents and about eight or nine people with their own vans and in non-powered sites," he said.

"It was massive, it was just massive.

"It was absolutely brilliant, 90 per cent of the flyers are young people and we had no complaints, they just sat around the fire having a beer and all I got was compliments about how well it was run and we have heaps of return bookings."

Visitors travelled from Queensland, Victoria, Sydney, Newcastle and the Northern Rivers region for the event.

While at Bendemeer's pub, new owners Leanne and Mark Summers had a ripper of a weekend.

The couple took over the hotel in February and said the support from locals and tourists has been phenomenal with baby showers and Christenings booked at the weekend.

"We've been absolutely smashed with people coming from Gunnedah, Walcha, Tamworth and all over," she said.

"It's becoming a destination because it's only 40km from Tamworth and what we have found is there's a lot of overnight travellers because it's a halfway point between places.

"We're putting out a new menu on Tuesday focusing on good, old-fashioned hospitality and doing it well."

Out at Nundle, the Go for Gold Festival would usually draw a crowd of hundreds, but even without it local business owners were run off their feet.

Tours of Nundle's Woolen Mill were completely booked out at the long weekend, owner Nick Bradford said.

"We didn't know what to expect this year being the first without a festival and the crowds were huge," he said.

"We cap the tours at 20 people to keep social distancing and we could have easily sold double that amount, we turned away a lot of people who wanted to join a tour but couldn't."

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Mr Bradford said normally 20 to 30 per cent of visitors would be from Queensland, but this time most were from Tamworth, Gunnedah, Scone and Armidale.

"We also saw a lot of Sydney-siders choosing to come inland rather than go to the coast which is a real shot in the arm for regional businesses like us," he said.

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