China will be New Zealand's largest market for tourist spending by next year and will be the fastest growing market in terms of visitor numbers, according to an official forecast on Thursday.

In 2015, total spend by Chinese visitors grew 62.7 percent to 1.67 billion NZ dollars (1.14 billion U.S. dollars), while arrivals were up 34.3 percent to 356,000.

Chinese visitor numbers were forecast to rise by 159 percent to 921,000 in 2022 and their total spend was expected to rise by 219 percent to 5.32 billion NZ dollars (3.63 billion U.S. dollars).

China, currently the second largest tourism market after Australia in terms of visitor numbers, "will be New Zealand's largest market for spend in 2017, as well as the fastest-growing." 

"We are already seeing a marked change in the travel patterns of Chinese visitors. They are visiting more regions in New Zealand, and taking on a wider range of activities,"MBIE general manager evidence, monitoring and governance, Michael Bird said in a statement.

Chinese visitors drive boom in New Zealand accommodation sector in March, according to figures from the government statistics agency Wednesday.

"Guest nights for March were boosted by an early Easter and increased visitor arrivals, and are the highest recorded for any March month," business indicators senior manager Neil Kelly said in a statement.

Figures from Statistics New Zealand last month showed holiday-makers from China helped drive a record number of overseas visitors in March.

Total visitor arrivals reach a new March record of 344,400, up 18 percent from March last year, with arrivals from China up by 9,600 to 40,400.

More visitor arrivals from Shanghai, Beijing and Zhejiang contributed to the rise in visitor arrivals from China, said a commentary from the agency.

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