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China overtook the United States as the third largest source of visitors to New Zealand in the year to the end of September, the New Zealand government statistics agency announced Friday.

"Most of our visitors still come from Australia, with over a million Australians visiting in the last year," Statistics New Zealand population statistics manager Andrea Blackburn said in a statement.

"But the number of visitors from China increased to 186,800, fast approaching the 198,400 arrivals from the United Kingdom, our second largest source of visitors."

In the September month, 179,100 visitors arrived in New Zealand, more than the 174,200 arrivals in September 2010, but lower than the 219,900 visitors in September 2011, when numbers were boosted by the Rugby World Cup, said the statement.

Government tourism agency Tourism New Zealand said the figures were no surprise and reflected the Rugby World Cup 2011's impact on last year numbers.

Chief executive Kevin Bowler said the year ending September saw visitor arrivals up 1.8 percent on 2011, but total arrivals for the month of September were down 19 percent, indicating a significant boost brought about by the Rugby World Cup, which New Zealand hosted in September and October.

"This time last year, New Zealand was definitely caught in Rugby World Cup fever with September a key month for pool play games. The result was a big increase in visitors from Western and European markets," Bowler said in a statement.

However, with the Rugby World Cup removed from the equation, the situation remained positive, he said.

Total visitor arrivals are up 3.1 percent on two years ago, with Australian arrivals are up 4.5 percent on two years ago.

Visitor arrivals from China were now only exceeded by Australia and the United Kingdom.

"In terms of the number of people (tourism) operators are seeing, it is increasingly visitors from Asia, not Europe," said Bowler.

"However, although the number of arrivals are high, Chinese stay on average for significantly fewer days than visitors from the United States and Europe, which remain priority markets for Tourism New Zealand," he said.

Chinese holiday stay days were almost 50 percent less than stay days for holiday arrivals from the United States.