HOTELS are packed to the rafters as a bumper weekend of events grows confidence and boosts trade in the city.
Newcastle Tourism Industry Group chairman Kent Warren said a return to regular programming was driving not only an economic boost but renewed optimism across Newcastle's tourism sector.
"You don't get bigger weekends in Newcastle than this," he said.
"This is anecdotal, but more and more people are realising how close Newcastle is ... we are seeing hotel vacancies picked up by leisure travellers because Newcastle is seen as a really great regional city to go to.
"It's really strong across the weekend, and leading into April across most weekends hotels are expecting to be full."
The public will be spoilt for choice this weekend between the the Newcastle Writers Festival, the NewRun marathon, the finals of Surfest, Spiegeltent's Blanc de Blanc Encore at Civic Park, Jessica Mauboy's tour, and the kick-off of Newcastle Food Month with Diner en Blanc.
Sadly, Maitland's Steamfest was derailed by the rain, but there's plenty on for families with The Wiggles and Sesame Street Circus Spectacular.
Crystalbrook Kingsley general manager Carl Taranto expects they'll be jam-packed in the hotel and restaurant.
"Certainly our business this weekend is really strong with all the activity ... it's great to have the activity back driving that leisure business we want," he said.
"There's been a gradual build-up from February with people wanting to connect face-to-face, people want to come back out to the venues and dine and be social.
"It's really exciting now to see this demand, I'm thrilled not only for our business but all the independent restaurants, bars and hotels.
"We have the opportunity to climb our way back from a really tough 2021 and start 2022, I'm hoping all of us as an industry can continue this momentum."
It's a welcome relief from a patchy period where many exhausted their budgets, Business Hunter chief executive Bob Hawes said.
"There's still a serious COVID cloud hanging over us but it appears people are getting out more," he said.
"We know businesses, arts and culture have been hit hard and are experiencing a bounceback - the question is whether that can be sustained.
"We have businesses in some sectors of the economy doing extremely well while others are constrained by supply chain issues and labour shortages, they can only respond to the fortunes or sentiment of the market."
Mr Hawes said events like Surfest help businesses bed-in for the quiet, cooler months.
"If the COVID wave we are having at the moment starts to have a bigger bite and we see a larger furlough of staff or people getting crook, we will see places have to choke down or reduce their scale of operations because they don't have the staff to support it," he said.
"But leading into Easter and the school holidays, things seem reasonably bouyant and that's a good thing - there are a lot of festivals and events on and it seems people are coming out of their shells a little bit.
"I think there are still difficult days to come, but the trends we are seeing are encouraging."
