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Chinese New Year drives record New Zealand visitor arrivals

Xinhua, March 21, 2016 Adjust font size:

The Chinese New Year holiday helped drive a February record in overseas visitors to New Zealand last month, tourism officials said on Monday.

Visitor arrivals numbered 373,400 in February, up 9 percent year-on-year, according to Statistics New Zealand, the government statistics agency.

"An increase in holidaymakers, coupled with 2016 being a leap year, helped boost visitor arrivals to a record high for a February month," population statistics manager Jo-Anne Skinner said.

In the year to the end of February, visitor arrivals hit a record 3.2 million, up 10 percent year-on-year.

Visitor numbers over the Chinese New Year period made it New Zealand's biggest Chinese New Year to date, said Kevin Bowler, chief executive for the government's Tourism New Zealand agency.

"When we compare the two weeks either side of the actual New Year's day, which fell on Feb. 8 this year, we welcomed 51,200 Chinese visitors - that's 6,770 more than we did in 2015 - setting another new record for China," Bowler.

"This year's Chinese New Year really was bigger and better than ever before." Endit