There's no doubting the urgent need for more beds in many of our tourism hotspots.

LISTEN ABOVE: Remarkables Park chief executive Alastair Porter speaks to Rachel Smalley

Focus has been turned on the situation through figures showing an additional 700,000 visitors coming to New Zealand every year.

Remarkables Park chief executive Alastair Porter told Rachel Smalley the demand is year round.

"There's certainly an accommodation shortage in Queenstown, the hotels in Queenstown are pretty much full most of the time."

Porter said that's true for the top of the crop hotels too.

"We have a really broad range of tourists coming here, certainly we are short of five star hotels here - that's part of the gap in the market."

Queenstown's tourism body agrees the time is right for international investors to look at building more hotels in Queenstown.

Destination Queenstown Chief Executive Graham Budd said in the past there hasn't been the demand to justify building more accommodation.

He said the business case "has to stack up."

"We have however reached a point in New Zealand and Queenstown where that business case is stacking up, and there's a lot of interest in building hotels here."

Christchurch and Canterbury Tourism Chief Executive Vic Allen said the work in the city centre means it will be a while before its hotel sector is fully tested.

"Visitor numbers in the city won't get back to pre-earthquake levels until the rebuild is pretty much completed, and that won't be for a year or so."