THE Wagga Visitor Information Centre (VIC) will move back to Tarcutta Street within weeks but its future remains unclear.

Wagga City Councillors were given two options at Monday night's ordinary meeting - to maintain the VIC at the Civic Centre or resume operations at the original site when gasworks remediation work is complete.

Councillor Paul Funnell stepped in to claim September 29 as the date for a Tarcutta Street return and later told the meeting it just happened to be Feast day of Saint Raphael - the patron saint of happy meetings and travellers.

The move was unanimously backed, but debate centred around the need to look at longer-term options.

"It's time to move on, make a decision," Councillor Funnell said.

"I'd rather someone pull into the tourist information centre and see a temporary fence (around the gasworks site) ... (then) just drive past and Wagga misses out."

A business case study, to be tabled in March, will explore future VIC options.

"We do have to visit that (business case) ... in this day and age there's more to it than people just calling in, picking up a map and moving on," Cr Funnell said.

"I know that, possibly, the tourist information centre's days are numbered, but in the meantime we need to get on with it."

Councillor Alan Brown echoed the sentiment.

"It's obvious we need to move it back to Tarcutta Street in the short term and maybe the medium term," Cr Brown said.

"We need to have a realistic look where we're going with this whole thing."

Cr Brown stressed the business plan needed to take into account a "whole city" approach and not be focused only on the Tarcutta Street VIC building.

Councillor Greg Conkey questioned whether September 29 was a feasible, if minor improvements were needed at the former site and the estimated cost of moving the facility back.

Director of commercial and economic development Peter Adams didn't see any issues with the date and said the building was expected to be re-carpeted prior to operations resuming, at an estimated cost of about $5000.

Councillor Kevin Poynter said it was important council considered how information was provided to allow people to extend their stay beyond focused events such as Kapooka march-outs and Charles Sturt University graduations.

"A large number of visitors visit the city without either visiting the Visitor Information Centre or accessing tourist information on our website," Cr Poynter said. 

A report to the meeting said there had been positive outcomes from the Civic Centre trial, including integration of staff members into the organisation, improvements in procedures and process efficiencies. 

But, despite Art Gallery visitor numbers and sales increasing, the same effect wasn't evident for visitor centre services.

"The smaller footprint of the co-located VIC has seen a reduction in the sales of VIC merchandise during the trial period and a continuation of the trend of a reduction in visitor numbers to the VIC," the report said.

"The short trial period has not been long enough to offer solid advice on overall trends."

As part of the trial, council negotiated with several sites along the Sturt Highway/Edward Street to provide "satellite visitor information delivery", such as brochure stands, at key points.

The report also revealed a declining trend of VIC visitation, which was consistent with similar facilities across Australia.

THE people have spoken.

The "retrograde" shift of the Visitor Information Centre (VIC) to the Civic Centre prompted more than 5000 signatures of opposition being handed to Wagga City Council yesterday.

Ronda Lampe - the public face behind a community push to have the VIC return to its Tarcutta Street home - presented mayor Rod Kendall with more than 2000 signatures before last night's meeting.

It comes after more than 3000 were tabled prior to the July 28 meeting.

Mrs Lampe has been vocal in her campaign to overturn what she described as the "worst decision that could be made and a very retrograde step for encouraging tourism".

Councillor Kendall acknowledged the petitions during the meeting and thanked Mrs Lampe for her enthusiasm.