A long period of fine weather also helped, Doc said.
With about four weeks of the peak Great Walks season left, the Doc Queenstown regional visitor centre reported the demand for hut spaces and camp sites on walking tracks remained "extremely high".
"Both the famous Great Walk tracks and lesser ... known tracks are receiving sustained attention from backpackers visiting from around the world," visitor centre supervisor Andrew Evans said.
"Tramping seems to be an attractive form of recreation and New Zealand offers high quality facilities and services in the back country unavailable in other destinations, like Australia and Canada, where there are not equivalent hut networks, fewer well-maintained tracks and fewer rangers present."
Bed-night demand increased this season on the three Southern Great Walks - Routeburn, Kepler and Milford - compared with last year.
The Routeburn was especially popular, Mr Evans said.
"The two main huts, Routeburn Falls and Lake McKenzie, were 80% sold for the season up to March 2, up on 73% last season. That's 7043 bed-nights from 6485 last year and it's a trend across all the Great Walks.
"Kepler's Luxmore Hut had 6521 bed-nights sold, as of March 2, compared with 6141 last year.
"Milford is almost always fully booked - 7171 people walked Milford, as of March 2; up from 7036 last year."
Back country tracks, such as the Rees-Dart, Hollyford and Caples, had also experienced growth in popularity, Mr Evans said.
"Our hut warden at Dart Hut has consistently had more than 45 people in the hut since the start of the year, more than 50 on occasions in January and February.
"This is a hut with only 32 bunks, so they're sleeping on bedrolls in common areas. We're strongly encouraging people to take tents and camp near the hut."
Visitor centre staff had fielded about 100,000 inquiries between June 2009 and March 1, which was on a par with last year.
The three rangers were dealing with 1200 inquiries a day during the mid-February peak.
The busiest day was January 3, when 1548 visitors descended on the Shotover St centre.
"We're coping with three counter staff at any one time. However, it would be fair to say our staff are stretched to the limit during the summer months with the volume of inquiries," Mr Evans said.
Australians, Germans, Israelis and Americans, as well as New Zealanders, remained the most common nationalities of trampers, Doc recorded.
People aged between 18 and 35 made up the largest demographic of those tramping between January 1 and March 2, at 49%.
Those aged 36 to 50 were the next most popular age group, at 22%, with 51 to 65 year olds at 18% and 17 years and under at 11%.
Mr Evans said the most common questions asked usually related to conditions on the Routeburn, hut facilities, weather forecasts and track updates.
"It's been a period of fine and settled weather since mid-January, which has allowed trampers to experience the best New Zealand's natural environment has to offer and complete their itineraries as planned."
