In what is being described as a three-week spike in activity, some tourism operators are saying they have never had it so good.
Million Dollar Cruise owner Wayne Perkins said business was going ‘‘fantastically well'' and he was looking for a bigger boat to cope with demand.
He was operating three lake cruises a day on his 50-seater boat, and every trip was full, with customers often waiting for up to a day to get a booking.
‘‘When I first came here in 1982, this is the sort of stuff we dreamed about,'' Mr Perkins said.
‘‘If you can't make a quid at the moment, give up and go home.''
Tourist operators who had worked hard over the years to develop a high quality product were reaping the benefits.
He estimated his business was growing at a rate double that of the rise in visitor numbers to the resort, even though it was not targeting the Chinese market.
Coronet Peak Tandems owner Angus Tapper said the number of Chinese customers had increased dramatically from last year, while North American business was also growing steadily.
Because paragliding was weather-dependent, the beauty of the resort being so busy was that when flying was possible, it was ‘‘all go''.
Ngai Tahu Tourism southern regional manager David Kennedy said the Chinese New Year holiday was generating a three-week boost in activity during the peak of the international tourist season.
Its Dart River Wilderness Jet and Funyak experiences had versions tailored for Chinese visitors, and they were proving particularly popular with tour groups.
In the past, visitors from Europe and the United States had made February the busiest month. With those markets remained strong, the rise in visitors from China was creating a ‘‘spike'', Mr Kennedy said.
Go Rentals Queenstown airport branch manager Adrian Thompson said demand for vehicles was ‘‘fantastic'', with more domestic business on top of an increasing number of customers from China and Southeast Asia.
Queenstown Airport acting chief executive Mark Edghill said data on the nationality of domestic passengers was not available, but ‘‘anecdotally we are seeing a lot of visitors coming through from Asia''.
There was an average of 41 flights in and out of the airport each day this week, about eight flights a day fewer than during the Christmas-New Year peak period.
