Hamilton business owners are confident people will slowly return to the central city.

In a bid to revitalise the city the Hamilton City Council adopted a new safety plan at the end of last year.

The plan included a new bylaw making begging, rough sleeping and nuisance behaviour an offence.

Hamilton Central Business Association General Manager Sandy Turner says there's been a significant improvement in behaviour in the central city.

"And I think it's going to take time for people to have faith that things have changed."

Turner says the atmosphere in the CBD has completely changed.

"We've also seen a huge reduction in central city nuisance behaviour, loitering."