Destination Queenstown chief executive Tony Everitt was asked to comment yesterday on a report by Statistics New Zealand which found guest nights for international visitors rose 7.1% in October 2011, thanks mainly to the Rugby World Cup.
The increase was offset by a 6.5% fall in domestic guest nights, which resulted in an overall decline of 1.5% in total guest nights compared with October last year.
"These results, particularly for the South Island and therefore Queenstown, it's really the combination of everything that's happened this year since the January floods in Queensland," Mr Everitt said.
"It's the cumulative build-up and, added on top of that, in the month of October all the Rugby World Cup games were in the North Island, so that's an added factor.
"But we don't think it would be fair to consider the Rugby World Cup in isolation because, as pretty much every DQ member I talk to says, it's been almost an unprecedented year in terms of negative impacts on us: Queensland floods in January, Christchurch earthquake in February, Japanese tsunami in March, ash cloud and late snow in June."
Statistics New Zealand industry and labour statistics manager Louise Holmes-Oliver said October figures continued what was found in September, with increasing international and decreasing domestic guest nights.
International guest nights were higher in nine of the 12 regions in October 2011, compared with October 2010; particularly in Auckland, Wellington and the Waikato.
With 13 of the 15 World Cup games in October being held in the North Island, the top half of the country saw a 24% rise in international guest nights.
Domestic guest nights were down in nearly every region, except in Otago and Nelson-Marlborough-Tasman. The decrease in domestic guest nights occurred despite one week of the school holidays being shifted to October from September, to align with the final stages of the tournament.
Canterbury continued to show the largest regional fall in guest nights. The combined increases for Auckland, Nelson-Marlborough-Tasman and Wellington, which had the largest increases of all regions, were more than offset by the fall in Canterbury.
Christchurch lost much accommodation capacity because of its earthquakes.
With its main stadium damaged, it did not host any World Cup games.
"Given that we would have had some games in the South Island, as in Christchurch, in October ... that would have been more favourable to us, but it's one of those things that can't be helped," Mr Everitt said.
"These results are exactly what we've been expecting for many months now so there's no surprise in those figures."
