Rugby World Cup 2015: Boom in Kiwi travellers

Fans backing black at the Rugby World Cup are behind a boom in Kiwis travelling abroad last month. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Fans backing black at the Rugby World Cup are behind a boom in Kiwis travelling abroad last month.

Numbers released by Statistics New Zealand today show double the number of New Zealanders took a September holiday in the United Kingdom this year compared with last year.

Kiwis took almost 2.4 million trips overseas in the year to September - a record number, Statistics NZ said.

Most of the increase came from short stints across the ditch in Australia or long-haul flights to the UK on other side of the world.

Population statistics manager Joel Watkins said All Blacks fans clearly contributed to the numbers.

"The Rugby World Cup kicking off in September coincided with a large increase in New Zealand residents holidaying in the United Kingdom," he said.

Visitor arrivals were also up 9 per cent in the September 2015 year compared with 2014, with more than 3 million crossing New Zealand borders. Australian visitors contributed 1.3 million of the visitors.

The annual net gain in migrants has also been setting records in New Zealand over the last 14 months - with 61,200 arriving in the year to September 2015. More than 5500 migrants arrived last month alone.

Most migrants came from Australia and then India, where 75 per cent of the migrants had student visas, while people from China, Philippines and the United Kingdom also contributed to the numbers.