We need rain. And lots of it. There is no way around that fact. The drought is certainly being felt by farmers and other local businesses at the moment and there is little remedy without good general rain.

But there has been one bright spot in the local economy, despite the big dry.

In 2018, visitor numbers to the Orange region were up 18 per cent on the previous year, with close to 1.8 million people making day and overnight trips to the Colour City and surrounding towns and village.

And for the first time, 2018 saw more than 500,000 domestic overnight stays in Orange.

“I think we have defied the drought,” said Orange360 General Manager Caddie Marshall, who is confident the 2019 data will show even more growth in the local tourism sector.

Orange360 recently won Gold at the NSW Tourism Awards for their Extend the Weekend marketing campaign, which was aimed at getting under 35s out of the city and into the Orange region.

More than the industry accolades, Caddie said it is the results of that campaign that she finds more rewarding.

“I mean the data was pretty extraordinary— 13 million views to that specific campaign landing page! And then you had a flow-on effect of 50,000 of those wend on and clicked through to look at individual businesses within our region, that is pretty extraordinary,” said Caddie.

“And that's the bigger prize to me. On the night it was a huge surprise and delight for us, but it was just the cherry on the top. It was the actual results, seeing people change their intent to want to come to Orange after that campaign.

“We’re hearing more and more people saying they’re seeing a lot more of Orange than ever before on their social media feeds. People are talking about Orange; there just seems to be a buzz! That was the whole intent of the campaign.”

Local winery Heifer Station also won gold in their category at the NSW Tourism Awards and are set for even bigger things in 2020 with the inaugural Day on the Green set to draw a crowd of 10,000 music lovers to Orange.

“It is a bit of that whole rising tide brings everyone up,” said Caddie. “People will want to get to Heifer Station and then they'll want to explore and do more…

“They’ll come into the region for a Day on the Green and they'll go, ‘I had no idea how beautiful it was, I had no idea how many cellar doors there are, I have to come back!’”