The Mackenzie Country is crowded with tourists biking, tramping and enjoying the stunning scenery and has gone to new heights in visitor numbers, passing numbers from pre-Covid days.
One camping ground described it as "crazy" and said the business had had a 100% increase in bookings compared with last year, while another said all its rooms were full until May.
Stats NZ released data late last week that showed overseas visitor arrivals hit 3.51 million in the year to December 2025, up 6% from the previous year.
Total annual visitor arrivals were 90% of 2019 levels, before the Covid pandemic began.
Destination Queenstown and Lake Wānaka Tourism chief executive Mat Woods said Queenstown had fully recovered and moved beyond pre-Covid numbers, reinforcing its role as a key driver of New Zealand’s tourism recovery.
In the Mackenzie Country tourism numbers have also swelled.
"Just so busy but I think everywhere is so busy. It’s just more people on the road. I think there’s more international tourists," he said.
‘It will be just a normal Wednesday and suddenly we’re completely booked out, even all our camping sites, which actually never really happens to us.
"That’s just crazy for us because we’re normally sitting on 150 people per day at this time of the year, and now we’re sitting on 300."
Usually, the camp got a lot of last-minute arrivals but this summer more people had booked early.
The increased visitor numbers had led to a rise in staff from eight to 12. It showed no sign of slowing down. He had just 20 rooms left vacant for the entire month of March.
The Maadi Cup at Lake Ruataniwha in Twizel in late March should also fill up the camp for a week.
Since then things have got busier but it is now off the charts.
"It’s now so busy. Last year we were already so busy, but this year we are so much more busy again."
Further north, the Twizel Holiday Park is also enjoying a bumper season.
Co-manager Alice Purton said the park was full all the time.
"They are from everywhere. We have had some Chinese in this week as it is Chinese New Year. We have got a real mixture of people, young and old."
All nine units at the holiday park were booked through until May and campers were continuing to roll in.
Mackenzie District Council tourism manager Lydia Stoddart said demand was very strong from tourists, starting in November through to April, and there was plenty to do.
"We’ve got Aoraki/Mount Cook. We’ve got Lake Tekapo. We’ve got dark sky reserve, glaciers. There is a lot up there," she said.
She said she was still waiting for the latest visitor number figures but indicative figures such as pressure on the wastewater systems, the Hooker Valley Track counting, NZTA data was "all indicating [it was] back at above 2019 levels."
A free campervan site near Lake Pukaki was averaging 150 vans a night.
She said it was great to see all the tourists but it was putting a lot of pressure on a small rating base.
The district had 5500 ratepayers and had the highest number of guests per ratepayer in the country — 140 tourists to one ratepayer compared with the national average of seven to one.
