Queenstown monthly visitor numbers showed a strong recovery for May 2012 according to Statistics New Zealand figures released this month, with the resort town recording New Zealand’s highest visitor number increase.

The Commercial Accommodation Monitor showed guest nights overall were up 14.4 percent (16,000) to 127,964 in May 2012 compared with May 2011.
International guest nights were up 24 percent to 76,302, accounting for 59.6 percent of all guest nights in the Queenstown area in May 2012.  Domestic guest nights increased 2.7 percent, to 51,662, for the same period.

The spread was across all accommodation sectors with hotels recording 16.8 percent, motels 11.4 percent, backpackers 9.5 percent, and holiday parks 20.5 percent increases.
This was ahead of the national results which saw an overall guest night decline of 0.3 percent.

Destination Queenstown CEO Graham Budd said it was pleasing to see a recovery compared to May 2011 when the resort recorded the lowest number of May guest nights since 2004.

“Hosting TRENZ, New Zealand’s premier international trade event, for a second year clearly boosted the result and helped our recovery.
“With several months of improved year-on-year results now, we appear to be seeing a sustained, if small, rate of growth overall.
“On a full year basis we are now almost back on a par with the prior year-end May result.
“Domestic visitors have been the driver of this, so we still have a significant challenge to rebuild international visitor numbers which remain 6.3 percent down year-on-year.”