Prime Minister John Key is welcoming figures released yesterday which show that more than one million Australian tourists visited New Zealand in the year ended May.
Statistics New Zealand figures show that 1.002 million visitors arrived from Australia in the year, the first time more than one million visitors had arrived from Australia in a 12-month period.
"Our decision in March to boost marketing in Australia by $2.5 million was based on very sound principles.
"In tough economic times, the New Zealand market is still very accessible to Australians wanting to holiday and we recognised the need to take advantage of that."
Mr Key, also Tourism Minister, said Tourism New Zealand had seen increased awareness of New Zealand in Australia in recent months.
Highly competitive air fares, good seat capacity and a favourable exchange rate were all working in New Zealand's favour.
Tourism NZ yesterday launched a promotional campaign to celebrate the one millionth visitor, he said.
However, the news was not quite so good in the rest of the visitor-number figures released by Statistics NZ.
While the Australian figures were up 4% in the May year, double that of 10 years ago, total visitor arrivals from all source countries were down 3% to 2.4 million in the period.
In the month of May, before the spread of swine flu, short-term overseas visitors to New Zealand were 140,500, up 1% from May 2008 and the highest ever recorded for a May month.
Australian visitor numbers were up 9200 but there were fewer visitor arrivals from Korea (down 3400), China (down 2700) and Japan (down 2500).
New Zealand residents left on 163,799 short-term overseas trips in May, down 6%.
There were fewer trips to Australia (down 5900), the UK (down 900) and Fiji (down 800).
In the May year, 70,100 fewer New Zealanders (down 4%) left for short-term trips.
ASB economist Jane Turner said the increase in swine-flu infection rates in June might dent visitor arrivals, particularly with businesses starting to limit transtasman travel.
"While Australians continue to visit in growing numbers, the credit crunch has seen a sharp drop in visitors from the US, UK and Asia."
Longer-haul visitors tended to spend more per visit, as they stayed longer.
The decline in revenue stemming from fewer of those tourists was already apparent, with exports of services dropping sharply in the past year, she said.
