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Visitor spending grew last year, boosted by Americans visiting on cruise liners.
A survey of 5000 people aged 15 years and older at Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch airports estimated visitor spending last year was $6.4 billion, up from $6.1 billion in 2005.
Ministry of Tourism research manager Bruce Bassett said the result was in line with expectations.
The 2005 result was cut from $6.5 billion to $6.1 billion to take account of the purchase of large capital items, such as real estate, reported by a couple of respondents, Bassett said.
"So having discovered that, we made a decision to remove those items from the IVS [International Visitor Survey] time series, which has had the effect of reducing the 2005 figure."
The data was now a fairer representation of actual tourism expenditure, he said.
Spending by British visitors was down 9.1 per cent at $947 million.
But spending in 2005 was boosted by rugby fans following the Lions' tour.
Australians spent 1.8 per cent less at $1.5 billion, but spending by visitors from the United States leapt 16.7 per cent to $697 million.
"We don't know exactly why that is, but the US cruise market has been strong," Bassett said.
Tourism Minister Damien O'Connor said the result reflected a huge effort by the industry.
"$6.4 billion equates to a huge amount of flights, nights in accommodation, restaurant meals and visitor activities." ... Despite the high value of the dollar, the tourism industry had continued to earn real wealth for New Zealand.
