Dubbo Chamber of Commerce president Matt Wright will be among those watching with interest to see if the city has more visitors in coming weeks as "a result of people finally being able to move freely across" state lines.
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NSW closed the border to Victoria four months ago as the southern neighbour was ravaged by a second wave of COVID-19, until improvement finally paved the way for its reopening on Monday.
Victoria's lockdown was also eased and it recorded no active cases for the first time in nearly eight months.
With checkpoints removed, travelling is a possibility once more.
"Super exciting, especially seeing one of the major inland road links from Melbourne to Brisbane runs through Dubbo, the Newell Highway," Mr Wright said.
"Traditionally it's not a busy time of year for people to be commuting or travelling through December and maybe January especially out this way as it's just so hot and we don't normally see a lot of visitors at that time of year.
"But I'm curious to see where we see an increased number of visitors through December, over and above what we'd normally see, as a result of people finally being able to move freely across the borders and travel further afield."
While hospitality, tourism and accommodation were the "obvious" sectors that could benefit from an influx, Mr Wright suggested it was an opportunity for retailers.
"So whether that means they get a bit active on social media, and promote the fact they're open, or whether they decide to open at times that they might not otherwise have opened, just to try to get their hands on people who otherwise wouldn't be visiting the city," he said.
The chamber president anticipated the end of the Victorian lockdown would also help businesses keep shelves stocked, "the major challenge" in the past three months.
"...we've now got these warehouses and distribution centres and factories that are now getting back to a point of having full staff there, and subsequently we're starting to see some more stock moving across the borders and hopefully on to shelves especially in the shops around Dubbo," Mr Wright said.
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"Moving into the Christmas period obviously that's so important for businesses to have stock to sell, if it's not available, people will look at alternative means of shopping, and if that means finding it through competitors online, then that's not necessarily a good thing for Dubbo businesses."