Chinese tourism down

Chinese New Year celebrations earlier this month may have attracted plenty of people to the Dunedin Chinese Garden.

But the February date of the Chinese holiday cut into national tourism numbers for January.

Chinese visitor arrivals in January stood at about 260,000.
That was down 2% from January 2012.

China is New Zealand's second-biggest source of overseas visitors.

Statistics New Zealand says Chinese people generally travel more around the Chinese New Year holiday, so there were fewer visitors this January.

An increase in visitors from the United States and Australia partially compensated for the drop.

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