KEY POINTS:
Overseas visitor numbers hit record levels last year but the key Japanese market is still falling, the latest arrivals data shows.
Visitor numbers in December were up 3.9 per cent on the previous year at 319,040 - the highest monthly total on record.
Data released by Statistics New Zealand also showed it was a record year with 2.42 million overseas visitors, up 1.6 per cent on 2005.
Australia led the way in December, followed by the UK and the US.
Tourism NZ chief executive George Hickton said he expected visitor numbers this year to be higher still.
"This is going to be - in terms of numbers of visitors - the best summer we've had ... because I know that [in] February and March the country will be very full.
"It's good to see that we're back on a steady growth path."
Australia in particular was a success story with 903,504 visitors last year, he said.
"Since we launched our campaign work there we've had about an 8 per cent increase in holiday arrivals, which is exceptionally encouraging."
However, the highly valued Japanese market was falling again - down 12.7 per cent in December at 12,636 visitors - influenced by the high exchange rate and competition from the growth of short haul destinations.
"We're doing a lot of work up there ... but we don't expect instant recovery in Japan," Hickton said. "We think it's going to be a slightly longer-term task."
The first television advertising in Japan was undertaken to match the release last month of the film Dororo - filmed in New Zealand and described by Hickton as Japan's equivalent to The Lord of the Rings.
Japan was the only major market in difficulty and was being offset by the rise of China, up 20.3 per cent for the year at 105,716 visitors, Hickton said.
However, maximising the return from the Chinese market was still an issue.
"There isn't an instant fix to that," Hickton said. "We have to start building a change into the China market in what they buy and how they're serviced here."
