But there's one last hurrah before the school holidays, with a huge influx of visitors for Easter.

With a mostly cloudy forecast and temperatures expected to reach between 23 and 24 for the four-day Easter long weekend, it will be ideal for holidaymakers set to flock to Port Stephens.

Destination Port Stephens CEO Steve Keogh said the Easter weekend is looking to be a bumper holiday period for the vast majority of tourism operators and small businesses.

"Everyone is anticipating a busy Easter and I anticipate we'll see a pretty big volume of people planning day trips too," he said.

April is also shaping up to be a boom period for the region with school holidays and Sail Port Stephens.

"It's a great draw-card for the area and we're trying to get all businesses to get behind it," Mr Keogh said.

Sail Port Stephens is an annual yachting regatta and is considered to be one of the largest regatta's in Australia.

The event will be in Port Stephens from April 15 to May 5 and Mr Keogh said it's a huge deal for the area.

"There will be people travelling from all across Australia to attend," he said.

Mr Keogh said Destination Port Stephens is encouraging domestic tourists to extend their summer.

"We've still got some beautiful weather so it's all about encouraging people to squeeze every last drop out of the summer sunshine," he said.

Port Stephens accommodation providers are anticipating a busy Easter and Bannisters Port Stephens is no exception.

General manager of Bannisters Peter Bacon said their bookings are looking strong for the Easter long weekend.

"We're pretty much full at this stage and a lot of people are booked in for Friday, Saturday and Sunday night," he said.

Accommodation providers also experienced a summer boom with a majority of accommodation at full capacity over the summer holidays, with overnight tourism just shy of a 30 per cent increase on the previous year.

According to data from Tourism Research Australia, from June 30, 2023 Port Stephens had 796,000 domestic overnight tourists.

"We're probably close to being back to how the numbers were in 2019 before COVID came into play," Mr Keogh said.

Now that household budgets have tightened due to interest rates, Mr Keogh said it's certainly an interesting time for domestic tourism.

However, he said tourism in Port Stephens is still well-positioned.

"Going overseas is still quite expensive and from that point of view, domestic tourism will do all right," he said.

"Every operator who I've spoken with has said that they've had a really busy time which is what we want to hear."

A popular all-year-round draw-card to Port Stephens is the Tomaree Coastal Walk, which Mr Keogh said is encouraging walking tourism and groups to the region.

Another draw-card to Port Stephens will soon be the whale watching season which Mr Keogh said brings in plenty of tourists.

"It's quite an amazing experience to get that close to the whales," he said.

Destination Port Stephens is also trying to encourage tourists to discover more than just the waterways of Nelson Bay and Shoal Bay, but to explore the region's hinterlands such as Seaham, Karuah and Hinton.

"We're keen to certainly make sure that all of our visitors know that there's also great opportunities to go and source local produce, kayak on the river and mountain biking," Mr Keogh said.