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Chinese visitors boost New Zealand accommodation sector

Xinhua, June 11, 2015 Adjust font size:

A record number of Chinese visitors helped drive a surge in New Zealand's accommodation sector in April, according to figures from the government statistics agency Thursday.

Guest nights around the country were up 3.6 percent from April last year, said Statistics New Zealand.

"Most of the rise for April was from international guest nights, " business indicators manager Neil Kelly said in a statement.

"Visitor arrivals from overseas were up despite earlier Easter and school holidays in 2015 than in 2014."

Domestic guest nights were up 1.6 percent and international guest nights were up 6.7 percent.

The number of visitors to New Zealand hit a record 2.96 million in the year ending April, driven by a record number of Chinese arrivals, the agency said last month.

The total number of visitors was up 7 percent from the April 2014 year, and the annual number of visitors from China topped 300, 000 for the first time.

Total visitor arrivals in the month of April were up 6 percent year on year to 238,000, with the biggest increases from China and the United States.

Visitors from China numbered 31,000 -- the highest-ever for an April month. Endi