According to passenger statistics, the airport had its busiest January on record.
A total of 249,916 people moved through the airport — 84,737 internationals travellers and 158,309 domestic tourists — up from 238,786 January last year, and 236,283 in January 2020.
It seems last month may also have been one for the books.
Queenstown’s Novotel general manager Jim Moore said while January was "pretty good", February was even busier.
"Even pre-Covid, February was probably our busiest month of the year," Mr Moore said.
While numbers last month were boosted by the return of Chinese visitors celebrating their new year, the hotel had also welcomed huge numbers of Americans, a few Europeans and "a lot of domestic", he said.
"I think, for us anyway, February was a record-breaker."
Hilton Queenstown general manager Chris Ehmann said the hotel had been run off its feet over the past two months, and he believed Queenstown was back to pre-Covid demand, if not higher.
"I think certainly Queenstown’s back in its stride.
"Most of the demand we’ve seen to date has more been from individual travellers and not yet so much group tours and C and I [conference and incentive] — and China’s hardly travelling — so it’s going really well."
Mr Moore said Novotel compared itself with five or six other major hotels — last month the occupancy over the whole group was about 95%.
Tourism New Zealand, NZSki and Destination Queenstown are about to launch winter marketing campaigns in Australia.
