With Rugby World Cup 2011 visitors removed from the equation, New Zealand's international arrival figures remain positive, Tourism New Zealand says.
For the year ended September 2012, total visitor arrivals were up 3.1% on two years ago and Australian arrivals were up 4.5% on two years ago, the marketing organisation announced recently.
Chief executive Kevin Bowler said the figure was actually higher if Australian arrivals from cruise ships were included.
"In the 2011-12 cruise season of October to April, 95,000 travellers enjoyed a cruise to New Zealand from Australia, but 80,000 of those passengers were not captured by this data because they would have embarked and disembarked in Melbourne or Sydney."
For the first time, visitor arrivals from China exceeded arrivals from the United States, to become the third largest source of visitors to New Zealand, behind Australia and the United Kingdom.
"Tourism New Zealand has just completed a nationwide series of workshops on preparing for the increase in arrivals from China and we know there are many in the industry working hard to support continued growth in this area and the delivery of quality holiday experiences," Mr Bowler said.
"However, although the number of arrivals are high, Chinese stay on average for significantly fewer days than visitors from the US and Europe, which remain priority markets for Tourism New Zealand.
"Chinese holiday stay days are almost 50% less than stay days for holiday arrivals from the US.
"We also anticipate the pending release of The Hobbit trilogy will increase preference for travel to New Zealand across the US and Europe."
