Tourism Minister Simon Birmingham has indicated that overseas travel restrictions for Australians could remain in place past December due to COVID-19.

He instead encouraged Australians to look at domestic destinations for holidays once restrictions are lifted.

Coronavirus: All the latest updates on COVID-19 for Tasmania

Tourism Industry Council Tasmania chief executive Luke Martin said when Tasmanian and mainlanders are able to travel again, the state will be in position to rebuild its crippled tourism industry.

"From all the intel, domestic activity will resume a lot sooner than international - for us that presents opportunities and challenges," he said.

"When we do really well with our domestic markets it's generally when international travel for Australians is curtailed.

"We could come out of that really well if we're smart and that will help kick along our recovery quicker than other destinations in Australia."

Mr Martin said airlines would need time to warm up again, making intra-state tourism the first priority.

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According to Mr Martin, 83 per cent of Tasmania's tourism market was interstate visitors, making us less exposed to the drop in international tourists unlike areas of Northern Queensland and South Australia where it's about 50 per cent.

"At the same time, international tourism in Tasmania really has boomed the last few years even though it's only been a minority of the market it's still worth quite a lot of money," Mr Martin said.

"International visitor spending is about $500 million a year - it's an industry in it's own right.

"Looking down the barrel of not having that market potentially for 12-18 months potentially is going to leave a big hole in the visitor economy."