More tourists stay overnight in Bay

Hawke's Bay Tourism general manager Annie Dundas

More visitors are splashing out on accommodation in Hawke's Bay, giving the local economy and the hospitality sector a boost.

Statistics New Zealand's Accommodation survey shows guest nights in February this year were up by 5.6 per cent on the same time last year - from 101,843 to 107,543.

Guest arrival numbers also increased 5 per cent, jumping from 47,715 in 2014 to 50,099 in 2015.

The survey records the number of guests staying in hotels, motels, backpacker accommodation, and holiday parks in New Zealand each month. Each guest night is equivalent to one guest spending one night at an establishment.

Hawke's Bay Tourism general manager Annie Dundas said a busy February had been expected.

"February is one of our peak months anyway so we would expect February to be high, but this year we obviously had the Cricket World Cup so we had a whole bunch of people in town which would have helped the increase," she said.

"We also had Art Deco Weekend at record numbers which was the first weekend of February, plus a whole bunch of other cricket activities. We also ran quite a strong campaign promoting the February weekend events we were running."

Ms Dundas said it was heartening to see an increase in the number of international visitors coming to the Bay.

"Hawke's Bay is one of New Zealand's top holiday spots and we have seen not only an increase in the number of people coming to stay in Hawke's Bay, but an increase in what they spend.

"There are also a lot of international visitors who aren't driven by events, but what we have."

By district, accommodation services in Napier clocked up more than 60,000 guest nights. Hastings had close to 40,000 guest nights and there were just over 6000 in Wairoa.

New Zealand wide, national guest nights were up 5.4 per cent.

Guest nights were up for all four accommodation types in February 2015, compared with February 2014. Hotel guest nights were up 4.9 per cent, motel guest nights were up 5.9 per cent, backpacker guest nights were up 1.1 per cent while holiday park guest nights were up 8.4 per cent. NZME.