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The effects of the high dollar may not be fully felt for up to a year.
The Ministry of Tourism has commissioned a study by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research into the potential consequences of the high dollar and the results are due in about a month.
The ministry's research manager, Bruce Bassett, said: "We have certainly seen from our own superficial analysis of the data that there are relationships between exchange rates and tourism sector performance. But there is a lot of inconsistency. [Some] markets are more sensitive than others.
"Australians are quite robust, the exchange rate doesn't matter that much, whereas the Germans are quite sensitive to it.
"And there is a quite a significant lag. It might take a year or more for an exchange rate movement in New Zealand to actually show itself in the data."
As well as visitor numbers, the study would look at the impact of the exchange rate on tourists' expenditure. Although tourists might still travel here when the rate was high, they wouldn't necessarily increase their spending budget.
That meant "the tourism industry, in terms of arrival numbers, might do okay but the guys selling the bungy tickets might not do so well", Mr Bassett said.
John Thorburn, CEO of Ngai Tahu Tourism, which operates attractions such as the Huka Falls and Shotover River jet-boating tours and Rotorua's Rainbow Springs, said it would be several months before the impact of the high dollar was known.
"We'll see what happens over the next few months but, if it does hold up at that level, we'll see it start to bite."
Mr Bassett said: "What we are probably going to find is that tourism is sensitive to exchange rates, but probably less so than a lot of our big export industries. In some respects, tourism will be an insulator for the New Zealand economy against the short-term spike that we hear is hurting our manufacturing sector."
Tourism Auckland CEO Graeme Osbourne said the high dollar was only one of many threats to the country's tourism industry.
The rise of short-haul, short-break holidays - which may be seen by Europeans as not only cheaper but also more environmentally friendly due to the "carbon footprint" associated with flying to a remote destination such as New Zealand - and the emergence of new markets such as China, Vietnam and South America could also affect the industry here.
Australia remained the largest market for New Zealand tourism but, while Australia's outbound growth had increased by 8 per cent, visits to New Zealand had increased by only 3.4 per cent.
"Unless we can demonstrate to the world 100 per cent Pure is more than just a brand campaign title we will lose credibility in our key offshore markets."
Figures for March, compared with last year show a 6.4 per cent drop in the number of American tourists visiting New Zealand.
Mr Osbourne said this was not necessarily a sign of the high dollar starting to hurt the tourism sector.
"We might expect some impact but I don't think we need to be predicting a doomsday."
The biggest drop in visitor numbers was from Japan, down 10.9 per cent for March and 15.1 per cent for the year.
Overall visitor numbers were up 5.4 per cent in March and 2.8 per cent for the year.
