The number of nights of paid accommodation in Otago facilities has increased by 5.8% in the past year, a Statistics New Zealand accommodation survey shows.
About 5,485,000 overnight stays were recorded in hotels, motels, backpacker accommodation or holiday parks in Otago during 2015 - up from the 5,184,000 in 2014.
About 70% of Otago's guest nights were recorded in the Queenstown-Lakes district (3,987,873), and about 16% in Dunedin (900,425).
Nationally, nearly 36.3million guest nights were recorded in 2015 - up 4.7% from the 34.6million recorded in 2014.
‘‘Guest nights in December 2015 were higher in both main islands, compared with December 2014,'' Statistics New Zealand business indicators manager Neil Kelly said.
‘‘Rises were also recorded for domestic guest nights, international guest nights, and guest nights for all four accommodation types.''
Mr Kelly said the monthly accommodation survey provided information about short-term commercial accommodation activity at national, regional, and lower levels.
It is run by Statistics New Zealand and is sponsored by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.
Information from the survey is used by regional tourism organisations, local and national government, and the accommodation industry for monitoring and planning.
