There's been a small increase in visitor arrivals, up 1% in September compared to the same month last year.

There were 193,000 visitor arrivals, the second-highest September total.

That's after September 2011, when the Rugby World Cup brought more than 200,000 people to New Zealand.

Visitors from the United States and Australia led the increase, while the number of Chinese travellers was down.

Overall visitor numbers for the last 12 months are up 5%, to 2.8million.

The number of overseas trips by New Zealanders is also up, by 3% for the year.