Record overseas visitors driving New Zealand accommodation sector

Record numbers of overseas visitors, particularly from China, are driving business in New Zealand's commercial accommodation sector, despite dips in the figures for December last year, the government statistics agency announced Wednesday. Guest nights overall in commercial accommodation dipped 0.2 percent in December, following a rise of 1.7 percent in November, while guest nights by domestic travelers dropped 0.8 percent after a fall of 0.1 percent in November, according to Statistics New Zealand. However, international guest nights were up 0.5 percent in December, following a rise of 5 percent in November. The trend for international guest nights was previously declining, but was now showing signs of a turnaround, said the agency's Accommodation Survey. "These rises are helped by record numbers of international visitors," industry and labor statistics manager Blair Cardno said in a statement. A record 10 million international passengers passed through New Zealand last year, including 381,900 overseas arrivals in December, the highest monthly total ever recorded The three biggest source countries for visitors last year in order were Australia, China and the United States, but of these three, China saw the biggest growth with visitor numbers up 16.2 percent to 228,928. Although Chinese visitor numbers dropped after the introduction of a new tourism law in October, the number of Chinese staying at least days in New Zealand was up from 4,500 in December 2012 to 6, 700 in December last year.