Rotorua scores after World Cup

The return to "business as usual" after the Rugby World Cup had a positive effect on Rotorua's tourism sector in November, with a 1.8 per cent rise in visitor nights.

Despite a poor Rugby World Cup result, the city's moteliers benefited most from the post-Cup upturn, recording growth of 13.5 per cent on November 2010.

Rotorua Association of Moteliers' chairwoman Fiona Suurenbroek put the rise in visitor nights down to the return of domestic travellers.

"Corporates stayed away during the Rugby World Cup. A lot of larger corporations told staff not to travel during that period due to perceptions that prices were hiked," she said.

Suurenbroek described the lift as welcome in what had be a rough couple of months for the sector, but said numbers were down for the summer as a whole.

"Numbers are not what they were last year and the weather is definitely playing a role."

She said there were fewer forward bookings than normal for this time of year and some people who had booked were ringing to change dates based on weather forecasts.

But as the school holidays drew to a close, she said moteliers would be hoping to see the usual corresponding increase in overseas visitors, although it would be interesting to see how the economic uncertainty in Europe would affect this trend.

Staff at the No1 Queen St cafe information centre reported an instant rise in the volume and quality of visitor inquiries once the rugby was over and people could refocus on their holidays, but international visitor nights in Rotorua were down 16.5 per cent in November to 70,719.

Domestic guest nights rose 27.4 per cent on the previous year to 77,093 and Destination Rotorua Marketing general manager Oscar Nathan agreed the lift was at least partly driven by corporate and conference activity, normally conducted in September and October, being pushed back to November to avoid the tournament period.

"This is the first month post-Rugby World Cup and it is good to see the domestic visitor numbers up significantly."

He said Aucklanders understandably wanted to stay home where the action was during the tournament, but they were definitely coming back now.

Nathan pointed to the 11.9 per cent rise in domestic visits to attractions and activities, saying he hoped Destination Rotorua Marketing's Locals' Week at the beginning of November played a role in that.

"We really do need to get locals to be better ambassadors for Rotorua," he said.

"It will be interesting to see how that kicks in for December and January."

Figures for December will not be released until next month, but he said that weather-dependent operators had reportedly been "clobbered", while indoor attractions, such as the museum, appeared to have done reasonably well.