Most visitors to Queenstown believe the resort is performing better on the environmental front than other regions of New Zealand, according to a new survey.
Almost two-thirds of the visitors questioned had rated Queenstown's overall environmental performance as "ahead of most others", which is well above the nationwide benchmark of 43%.
A total of 97% stated the town's environmental performance was either better than or equal to others.
The Regional Visitor Monitor is a joint initiative between the Ministry of Tourism, Tourism New Zealand and six of New Zealand's largest regional tourism organisations.
"The research shows `beautiful scenery' remains the most important expectation of visitors to Queenstown and this emphasis is at least 25% higher than for the other regions," Destination Queenstown chief executive Tony Everitt said.
Mr Everitt warned companies not to get complacent about the positive findings.
"It is pleasing to note that many local tourism businesses are working through programmes like Green Globe, Qualmark Green and Sustainable Tourism Advisers in Regions to further lift their sustainability game," Mr Everitt said.
The Commercial Accommodation Monitor for December 2009 from Statistics New Zealand shows the number of guest nights in Queenstown is recovering well from the year before.
In December 2009 the total number of guest nights in Queenstown was 218,194, which was an increase of 12.2% from the total of 194,629 in December 2008.
The 2009 figure is also higher than the December 2007 level, when the town had 212,714 guest nights.
By comparison, the number of guest nights nationwide only rose 4.4% from December 2008 to December 2009.
It also showed a total number of guest nights in New Zealand for December 2009 of 3,241,970
