From Monday, the fortnightly payment reduced from $1500 to $1200 for full-time, and to $750 for part-time workers.

A range of tourism and hospitality businesses in Northern Tasmania have spoken in the past of the benefits of JobKeeper in helping to retain staff during lockdown, including Seahorse World and McDermott's Coaches.

McDermott's managing director Simon McDermott said they had been able to recover lost trade by gearing their business towards local travel, so the JobKeeper reduction was not going to be a major issue.

"It's just meant that we've had to do a bit of rejigging of our business as far as top-ups, and having those people who aren't working being on a reduced payment," he said.

Tasmanian tour companies were among the hardest hit due to COVID, such as Hobart-based Jump Tours, which has not traded since March. Managing director Greg Price said their business model was not viable without interstate visitors, as Tasmanians would simply drive themselves to places rather than rely on a tour bus.

It was a similar story for Launceston-based Prestige Tours, which had continued to operate, but had only recently started to see an increase in trade.

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Owner Eamonn Seddon said the reduced JobKeeper rate "doesn't help", and Tasmania would need an influx of mainland visitors to ensure the survival of local tourism companies.

"Our biggest challenge is that we rely on November, December, January to make enough money to last to winter, so I'm far more concerned about the cessation of JobKeeper in March than in the current reduction," he said.

"I still think we're not going to get the levels over summer to allow the majority to save themselves for the coming winter. I think the government is going to have to do something."

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Allowing travellers from New Zealand to visit Tasmania was a start, but it would cover just a small fraction of the loss of Chinese, American and European tourists, Mr Seddon said.

He said one hope could be that mainlanders had banked their annual leave during lockdown, which they could then use on longer trips to Tasmania.

Tamar Valley Resort had been on JobKeeper until recently, when an increase in business put them above the threshold.

General manager Damien Pinkerton, also the chair of Launceston and Tamar Valley Tourism Association, said the reduction in JobKeeper would have have an effect on businesses that primarily relied on mainland visitors.