New Zealand: Short-term Guest Nights Up 7 Percent in March

There was a 7% increase in guest nights in March among five accommodations types in New Zealand -- a 4% increase in hostels:

Excerpt:

The number of guest nights spent in short-term commercial accommodation was up 7 percent in March from a year earlier, figures out from Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) show.

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Hotels were up 48,000 or 5 percent, and backpackers/hostels up 18,000 or 4 percent to that category's highest guest nights total for any month since the survey started in 1996.

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Having the Easter holidays in March, rather than April as was the case in 2007, may have contributed to the increase, but the effect was difficult to measure, SNZ said today.

Full article here.