However, while operators near to Darwin already saw the benefits of relaxed restrictions over the weekend with more than 300 visitors to Litchfield National park, little has changed thus far for our local Katherine businesses.

Caravan parks are empty, local parks remains closed and service industries say many won't make it through the dry season.

Tony Young from Riverview Tourist Village said the big challenge for Katherine even beyond the pandemic is to market ourselves as a destination rather than a pit-stop.

"At the moment, we've been encouraging people to stay and been hearing back that there's nothing to do in Katherine - unfortunately at the moment they're right," he said.

"I would say only about 15 per cent of our business are Territorians, everyone's champing at the bit in the NT to get outdoors so I'm sure more than that would come once things do open up but no, it's never going to be enough.

"Having at least some access to Nitmiluk would be huge for us, we could market that. The Territory has to support its own people and we need to find ways to promote Katherine.

"Hopefully the local government can really get going and help us to do that," Mr Young said.

Mayor Fay Miller believes Katherine is ideally placed to capitalise from fellow Territorians getting out to explore.

"I've always considered us the central crossroads for adventure in the Territory, there's plenty of places for people to access via Katherine," she said.

"This next period is really about people living in the NT experiencing their own backyard.

"You'd be surprised how many people in the NT haven't visited their own local parks and tourism product because they're so busy rushing around or travelling overseas and interstate," she said.

"We've got the advantage for being a weekend away in that people from Darwin can come look around and go back, it isn't difficult to visit the Katherine region and its far more appealing than driving all the way to Uluru.

"In what remains an awfully difficult time we are ideally placed," Mayor Miller said.

Tourism NT has established a 'Tourism Rebound Task-force', which aims to guide the road to the normality of tourism in the NT.

Any talk of opening bio-security areas earlier than expected was quashed as the restrictions for remote communities are a Federal Government initiative heavily influenced by Aboriginal land-councils, rather than Territory leadership.

Nonetheless, those present all pressed the supreme importance of lifting the number of intrastate travelers over the coming months.

In 2019, intrastate travel accounted for 33.8 per cent of all visitors, while just 7.7 per cent were international. in comparison to the 58.5 per cent stemming from interstate.

Encouragingly, only 7.7 per cent were international, but local caravan park operators today indicated it is the 58.5 per cent of travelers coming from interstate which they are missing most.

"Intrastate travel just won't be enough for us here," Glen Amato from Boab Caravan Park said.

"I do believe people will come from Darwin once we get some parks opened because where else are they going to go?

"But in a normal year interstate travelers are the majority of what we get, so the state borders opening is still our focus and that will be when there's cause for optimism for us as a business," he said.

Mayor Miller says she sympathises with the tourism industry but not to expect any access to such attractions any time soon.

"It's not over yet and I'm not in a hurry to open the bio-security areas in any form, I've always been a big supporter of tourism in Katherine but we just have to keep people safe," she said.

"There are discussions underway about what parts of the park might be opened, we need to think about what walks could be made available and when boats might be able to go up the Gorge.

"But I'm not anticipating that will happen until at least mid-June, probably late-June because we must ensure bio-security," Ms Miller said.

So, the message remains for Territorians to support one another and persevere, a task nobody doubts Katherine's capacity to achieve.

"Really the situation is worse than the 1988 flood because we could open up after that and people wanted to come and support us unique situation," Ms Miller said.

"But Katherine is a tough town, we've been through tough times before and I'm certain we'll rebound," she said.

Department of Tourism, Sport and Culture acting CEO Andrew Hopper said Tourism NT was working on a range of strategies to target intra-Territory visitors when restrictions are eased within the Territory.

"To assist in this process we have developed a range of scenarios based on intra-territory, interstate and international border restriction adjustments and then mapped those against speed of restrictions being eased and speed of how we return to 'the new normal'.

"Any decisions around recovery timeframes will be led by the Chief Minister for the Northern Territory and the Federal Government. The internal biosecurity zone controls we currently have in place under the Commonwealth Biosecurity Act are due to expire on the 18 June and the decision on whether to lift those controls will be made in partnership with the Federal Government, Land Councils and communities - and based on the health advice.

"We are extremely pleased to see the reopening of some NT Parks over the weekend and to see so many Territorians doing the right thing. This is the first significant step the Territory is taking to adjust its coronavirus-related restrictions and we look forward to a time when intra-Territory travel is possible."

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