British and Irish people are considering staying longer than they originally planned in Queenstown - and the rest of New Zealand - when they contemplate the troubled economies and labour markets in their home countries, an immigration lawyer says.
Darryl Gunn, of AWS Legal, Queenstown, was asked to comment on migration trends affecting the resort.
"British and Irish have always historically sought immigration to New Zealand, but I get the feeling British and Irish clients are very aware of the financial difficulties back home and are keen to stay.
"These well-qualified people have said there's nothing for them back there and see it's great here." Mr Gunn said many clients in Queenstown on temporary visas were inquiring about staying longer.
"Their working holiday visa may have brought them here by chance, they found reasonably good jobs and they've realised how difficult it is back home. Their minds are made up by circumstances."
British and Irish residents who were asked about their motivations for staying longer in Queenstown and New Zealand declined to comment, saying they did not want to compound what their native countries were going through by "doom and gloom" in print.
Mr Gunn said immigration in the resort was otherwise "business as usual", despite the concerns of some applicants about New Zealand's recession, the Christchurch earthquakes and changes to the Immigration Act 2009, which came into effect on November 29.
"There was a perception at the time of the crash, with developments failing, that foreign employees wouldn't be needed, but that mostly hasn't eventuated," Mr Gunn said.
"A lot of applications are processed in Christchurch, but the office relocated to the suburbs [after the quake] and just started to resume.
The office in Queenstown is doing a fantastic job. The manager picked up a lot of slack and has been quite flexible.
"The introduction of the new Immigration Act has not brought about significant changes to the substantive policy being applied.
"The big changes were enforcement and terminology, such as 'visa' meaning something different and 'permit' eliminated entirely."
Mr Gunn, an immigration lawyer for more than five years, said he was dealing with "scores" of residency cases, mostly from British, Indian, Chinese and American people in Queenstown. Australians did not need to apply and those with working holiday visas would have applied and received their visas before arriving.
Numbers of applications for New Zealand citizenship were relatively steady in his experience. However, not everyone with residency pursued New Zealand citizenship. Individuals might not see any benefits which residency did not already provide, or they chose to retain their native passport if the rules of their home country dictated they may only carry one passport.
Queenstown immigration, the numbers
• 289 New Zealand residence applications lodged with the Department of Labour in Otago in the skilled migrant category in the 2010-11 financial year. This was up from 274 in 2009-10, but down from 323 in 2008-09.
• 3206 work visa applications approved by the Department of Labour's Queenstown office between July 1 last year and May 1 this year.
• 10 different working holiday schemes included in those work visas.
• 102 people from overseas became New Zealand citizens in eight ceremonies held in the Queenstown Lakes District Council chambers between June 10 last year and May 11 this year. Of the total, 52 were male and 50 were female.
• 59 of the new citizens were British; eight were South African, five German, four American, four Indian, two Brazilian and the remainder from countries including Ireland, France, Fiji, Thailand and Zimbabwe.
• 68 people became citizens in Queenstown ceremonies between June 2009 and May last year. Of those, 42 were male, 26 female. Of the total, 33 were British. The second most frequent country that year was the United States (10), followed by South Africa (5), Germany (3), the Philippines (3) and Ireland (2).
