Visitor arrivals continued to increase in October, with Australians again, leading the trend.

Statistics New Zealand’s international travel and migration figures for October 2009 show arrivals were up 8% or 13,400 to 187,400 compared with the same period in 2008.

But arrivals in the October 2009 year, at 2.4 million, were down 1% or 24,400 from the October 2008 year.

In the seventh month of large increases of visitor arrivals from across the Tasman, Australians were the major contributor, recording a 22% increase, to 15,900 more visitor arrivals.

The latest Statistics New Zealand International Travel and Migration survey makes grim reading for tourism operators – international tourist numbers have continued to decline.

Short-term visitor arrivals in March (226,500) were down 24,300 (10%) from March last year (250,800).

There were more visitor arrivals from China (up 1,000) but fewer from the United Kingdom (down 9,400), the United States (down 5,100), Australia (down 4,300), Japan (down 1,400) and Korea (down 1,300).