Visitors to New Zealand remain "highly satisfied" with their experience, but the number of people "very likely" to recommend the country to others continues to fall, Tourism New Zealand says.
Results from the marketing organisation's annual visitor experience monitor released recently found 4500 international tourists rated their Kiwi holiday a lofty 8.9 out of 10.
However, the percentage of people "very likely" to recommend New Zealand to others, at 9 or 10 out of 10, carried on declining, from 84% four years ago to 79% for 2011-12.
The percentage of people "likely" to recommend (at 7 out of 10) remained unchanged from last year at 96%.
The past year also saw a continued drop in the average number of activities international visitors participated in, down from 13.8 in 2010-11 to 12.9 activities in 2011-12.
Tourism NZ chief executive Kevin Bowler said international visitors might be doing less, but they were still highly satisfied overall with activities.
"It is clear that the current strength of the New Zealand dollar is having an impact," Mr Bowler said.
"While satisfaction scores around the quality of services have seen an improvement on last year, visitor satisfac-tion with the price of activities, food and beverage and accommodation has decreased."
While overall safety scores have improved since last year and are high, at 8.8 out of 10, up from 8.7 in 2012 to 2011, visitors were less satisfied with road safety, which was rated 8.2 out of 10.
New Zealand's natural environment continues to receive the highest overall satisfaction rating of 9 out of 10, consistent with last year's results.
British, American and German tourists were the most satisfied with their New Zealand holiday on average.
Korean travellers were the least satisfied, while Japanese travellers were significantly more satisfied this past yearThe growing use of mobile devices while in New Zealand and the use of social media were trends of interest to Tourism NZ, Mr Bowler said.
"There has also been a significant increase in the number of visitors engaging with social media to share their experiences in New Zealand, both during and post travel, with Facebook the most commonly used social media tool for sharing New Zealand holiday experiences.
"This illustrates the growing importance of digital technology within the travel industry. Tourism New Zealand has placed a large focus on developing our digital presence, undertaking extensive work on our consumer site - newzealand.com - to better meet visitors' needs online."
