“House full” signs have adorned many of the city’s hotels and motels coming up to the long weekend with hundreds of people making the journey for the MIA Tennis Tour, UnWINEd, Football NSW Country Cup and the Sikh Games.

‘Tis the season to be travelling – apparently – and convoys of caravans can often be seen snaking along the Kidman Way as the southerners head north in search of warmer climates.

The Visitor’s Centre has been inundated with calls from tourists seeking accommodation and Griffith tourism manager Rick Matkowski said bookings were “sky high” at the moment – 20 per cent up on last year.

While Griffith has a total of 521 rooms and the capacity to sleep up to 1000 people, all rooms are full and Visitor’s Centre staff have had to get creative with accommodation options.

“We work with Leeton, Goolgowi, Darlington Point – anyone that has accommodation so we can give people options,” Mr Matkowski said.

“People have been coming to us if they’re having trouble getting through to hotels and motels which is a good thing, it shows the website it working.”

It might be an inconvenience for walk ins who need somewhere to stay, but Mr Matkowski said the influx of visitors was a huge benefit for the restaurant, fast food and retail industry.

“The challenge is, you can’t tell people when to hold events, but you could never build enough accommodation to cater for everybody if everybody turns up at the same time,” he said.

“But every person that comes into Griffith and stays here becomes an ambassador for Griffith, they only ever have positive things to say.”

Econolodge Griffith Motor Inn owner Gavin Silverthorne said it was not uncommon for this time of year that accommodation was booked out across the city.

However, over the last nine months he had noticed a steady increase in numbers.

“Hundreds come to town for the long weekend, most of the time you won’t get accommodation anywhere,” Mr Silverthorne said.

“Since the floods, though, it has been quite busy because there have been a lot more tradesmen and roadworkers in town doing the repair work.”