It has been confirmed by Statistics New Zealand that visitor arrivals in New Zealand for April 2009 were up by 9% from April last year, increasing by 16,500 to 195,900 for the month.

However, an increase does not mean that the tourism industry can take a sigh of relief, since SNZ warns that the increase came to scene due to the shift in timing of Easter, from March last year to April this year.

Furthermore, the tourist numbers are still down 2% from the same period last year, when the months of March and April are combined.

Mainly the increase in the arrivals in April came from Australia, with 16,800 more making the trip across the Tasman than in the same month last year.

But it should be noted that New Zealand does not seem to be an attractive destination for Koreans (down 3,200) and Japanese (down 1,100), due to the financial crisis.

SNZ said that for the year till April 2009, the 2,417,000 visitor arrivals recorded were down 65,900 (3%) from the previous April year.

On the contrary, during April, New Zealanders departed on 162,400 short-term overseas trips, down 1% from April 2008.

Fiji (down 1,500), China (down 1,100) and Japan (down 900) were the most affected destinations.

The total number of New Zealand resident departures came up to 1,940,000 for the April 2009, down 57,100 (3%) from the previous year.

(via TopNews New Zealand. Contributed by Amiri Halberg)