As it stands, from 11.59pm Thursday night, most businesses will receive minor changes to their operations with the capacity for hospitality businesses increasing from 50 patrons to 150, but only 75 of those will be allowed indoors.

Meanwhile, indoor recreation facilities such as gyms and dance studios will be able to reopen with capacity limits.

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Commerce Ballarat chief executive Jodie Gillett said she hoped to see an immediate return to pre-lockdown levels of restrictions for regional Victoria.

"We haven't had a case in regional Victoria since mid-January and our businesses need to be able to trade to restart their recovery," she said.

"To talk about allowing businesses to have people outside in the middle of winter is just not realistic. Our businesses have implemented every policy and procedure that has been asked of them to ensure that they keep our community safe.

"They're checking IDs, they're asking for QR coding, they have COVID-safe plans, what we need to do is to allow them to trade, it's their only hope of recovering."

Crucially, Melburnians will still be prevented from visiting regional Victoria until at least late next week, meaning the loss of vital tourism revenue, including an estimated $4.5 million in economic benefit from the now-cancelled Ballarat Junior Basketball Tournament.

City of Ballarat Mayor Daniel Moloney said while another step closer to normal was positive, it was disappointing Melburnians would not be able to visit over the long weekend.

"This coming long weekend is pretty critical to get a lot of our businesses through the often quieter winter months," he said.

"A lot of people would typically travel on Queen's Birthday weekend, so while I understand the state government is cautious about the health advice, it will have a pretty devastating impact on regional businesses and I think both the federal and state governments need to realise it.

"Just because restrictions have eased a fair bit now in regional Victoria, it doesn't mean businesses have got it easy because so many of our businesses depend upon trade from Melbourne and that is not going to continue for one of our most important weekends of the year."

Committee for Ballarat chief executive Michael Poulton said the continued restrictions were a reminder of ultimate long-term need for widespread vaccinations.

"We need to recognise that the restrictions are still in place and many of our community functions and businesses are still being impacted somewhat by these restrictions and it's not until we get fully vaccinated that we're going to really be able to live with this," he said.

"The limitations on travel, particularly for people from Melbourne, will continue to affect Ballarat and regional Victoria. There's no doubt that our economy, particularly the visitor economy, relies on people coming from Melbourne.

"Yes, there are still impacts of this but I think that we have to recognise there are impacts because we're not through this latest outbreak. We support the fact that we need to get on top of this quickly so it doesn't have lasting impacts on us."

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