Warrnambool mayor Tony Herbert made the plea, and said he had also heard that there were Airbnbs in the city that were being lease out for the weekend.

"That's not your primary residence or a holiday house," Cr Herbert said.

"The state government is saying 'remain in your primary residence', but you can, if you have a holiday house, go there and stay there."

However, Cr Herbert said that he didn't want people coming to the Warrnambool region to visit holiday homes if their primary place of residence wasn't in Warrnambool region.

Read more:

"Stay in your primary residence for the Easter long weekend," he said.

Cr Herbert said people coming to the area to visit their holiday houses were likely to go and buy groceries, go out to exercise or visit the chemist.

"They're not actually staying in their home," he said.

"With all due respect. We should all be staying in our primary place of residence this weekend and not potentially cross infecting each other.

"Normally we are just overjoyed to have residents come in and normally we have a number of Easter activities and events. This Easter is different."

The Age reported that Victoria's Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton urged people to stay home this Easter with holidaymakers are unlikely to be welcome in small coastal and regional communities.

Mr Sutton said the only way to avoid risk when visiting holiday homes would be for families to confine themselves there for the duration of their trip and distance themselves from contact with local people or businesses.

Police also want people to stay at home for the holidays but say they will not be issuing fines to people visiting their own holiday home, if they travelled directly there and stayed at the holiday accommodation for the duration of their trip, The Age reported.

This story originally appeared in The Standard