This was a key message from Graham Budd, marketing manager for Destination Queenstown, when he spoke to members of the local tourism industry on Monday.
He reminded the industry of the importance of word-of-mouth in marketing, as especially the online social network sites seemed to play a large part in spreading the word about Queenstown.
Mr Budd presented the most recent figures from Statistics New Zealand, showing that September 2009 was a good month for Queenstown compared with September 2008.
The number of international guest nights rose by 8.7% to 122,321, while the number of domestic guest nights was down 3.4% to 58,197.
In total, guest nights were up 4.5% to 180,518 for the month.
September's average length of stay fell to 2.7 nights from 2.8 nights last September.
The overall occupancy rate rose from 44.3% last year to 44.9% this year.
Looking at the entire year up to the end of September 2009, compared with the previous year, guest nights were down 3.7% to a total of 2,295,096.
The average length of stay in the year went up to 2.51 nights from 2.32 the year before.
"After a slow first half of the year, the picture changed in June 2009, so we are back in growth again," Mr Budd said.
Tourism New Zealand has announced a funds pool of $5 million for regional marketing, which Mr Budd said Destination Queenstown hoped to tap.
Destination Queenstown's present campaigns target "empty nesters" for spring, and the family and youth markets for the summer period.
