Tourism has surpassed the dairy sector as New Zealand’s top foreign exchange earner.

The growth is led by visitors from China.

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Tourism Industry Association chief executive Chris Roberts says there has been a resurgence in all markets.

He says there's great growth out of US, Germany, the UK and Australia remains our biggest market.

"We are actually back in front of dairy as the number one export earner and that will be confirmed at a later date in official figures."

Roberts acknowledges the resurgence will provide some reassurance for the struggling dairy industry.

"Tourism is having a real boom at the moment so tourism's providing some protection for the downturn that we're seeing in the dairy sector", Roberts said.

"In 2015 we expect export receipts from tourism to be around $12 billion and it's well over 10 percent growth on a year ago, so it's providing a really good buffer."