The 243,300 visitors from overseas making short-term trips to this country last month was 7 percent higher than in March 2009, Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) says.

A boom in Australian visitors continued, rising 17,500 or 20 percent from a year earlier, while visitors from Korea showed signs of recovery to be up 2400 or 43 percent from March 2009, although still well down on March figures in earlier years.

SNZ said the earlier timing of Easter, and school holidays in some Australia states influenced the increase last month.

While the holiday periods did not start until April 2, it was common to see rises in travel shortly before holiday periods began. Most of the March increase -- 14,300 visitors -- was in the last eight days of the month.

The underlying trend, which accounted for changes in the timing of holiday periods, showed the global economic downturn contributed to a 4 percent fall in visitor arrivals between March and November 2008, SNZ said.

The trend then rose beyond pre-downturn levels to a peak in November 2009, before falling slightly in recent months.

For the year to March, the number of visitors rose 4 percent or 98,400 from a year earlier to 2.5 million, with 141,000 more visitors coming from Australia, a rise of 14 percent.

Visitors from China fell 12,900 or 11 percent for the year, those from Japan were down 17,200 or 18 percent, Korea down 13,800 or 19 percent, and Britain down 8400 or 3 percent.

The number of New Zealand residents leaving on short term overseas trips last month was up 16,000 or 13 percent from March 2009. The rise was mainly attributed to the early timing of Easter and school holidays.

(Source National Business Review)