And if parking is required, the number needed should be decided by the hotel, not the public or the City of Greater Bendigo.

That is the view of Stephen Burgess, a planning consultant with 30 years experience who has helped many councils, including Bendigo's, shape their thinking on car parks.

He is not concerned a new hotel proposed for Hargreaves Mall has no plans for extra car parking, even if it employs 53 people for 110 guest rooms, a function centre and a restaurant.

"In a good city you should have to walk five or six blocks from where you park your car," Mr Burgess said.

That is because it encourages people to stop more often in other stores - something people who drive do not do enough of.

So Bendigo, like many regional cities, actually has too many car parks, Mr Burgess said.

"That's where metropolitan cities get the jump on Bendigo. They are places you need to get out of your car and walk," he said.

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Be.Bendigo's Dennis Bice said he had been "bemused" by some of the commentary about the hotel's lack of car parks since news broke on Friday morning of a planning

"Let's be positive and get on with it," he said.

"I was in a meeting with the people behind the hotel, as well as six or seven existing Hargreaves Mall traders, on Monday and not one of them thought the hotel was a bad idea."

Mr Bice said car parking was an issue raised at the meeting on Monday, but he was impressed by the amount of thought that the hotel's developers had put in.

The project is being spearheaded by Bendigo Hotel Investments, which contracted traffic engineers to study vehicle movements around Hargreaves Mall last November.

The Traffix Group engineers tracked cars and other vehicles throughout the afternoon and evening of what they said was a typical peak for a weekday.

Traffix found 57 car parks free at noon - or 89 per cent capacity.

That dropped to between 71 and 82 per cent capacity for the rest of the afternoon and evening.

They rated the city centre's "walking score" and rated it 80 out of 100, or "very walkable". They also found it close to amenities like public transport.

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Mr Burgess said visitors to Bendigo would be willing to plan ahead when arranging travel, and most would recognise that the CBD is "is a really busy little hub of a city now".

Many would see the benefit of taking the train into Bendigo or would not mind if they have to park further away, he said.

"You can't get past the fact that a hotel operator has made a commercial decision. If he or she thinks it can function without that car parking, who are we to tell them that they can't?"

The new hotel would be the 29th in Bendigo, according to plans presented to the council's planning department for consideration late this week.

The existing establishments have the occupancy rate per room of Australia's 10 biggest regional cities at 62.1 percent, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data recorded in 2015/16.

Within the city centre, 12 hotels have an average 71 per cent occupancy and businesses are able to charge 22 per cent more than in the other 10 cities, according to the same data, which Bendigo Hotel Investments used in a business case submitted with its planning application.

If built, the hotel will be the only 4.5 star hotel in Bendigo and would add 10 per cent more rooms in the city, according to the business case.

It could also inject $4.8 million into the area's retail and food industry, Bendigo Hotel Investments said.

Mr Bice said the hotel would be "extremely" important because Bendigo could not simply rely on attracting retailers to vacant shop fronts.

"Getting more retailers into the Mall is important, but we need to think more broadly if we want to change the dynamic there," he said.