WELLINGTON, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- Australia, the United States, Fiji and China are popular destinations for New Zealand travelers, the statistics department Stats NZ said on Friday.

More than 3.02 million New Zealand travelers returned from overseas trips in 2018. Most travelers arrived back from Australia, which accounted for 1.23 million resident arrivals, Stats NZ said.

About 215,000 New Zealand travelers returned from the United States, and 192,200 arrived back from Fiji, and 132,500 returned from China, it said.

For visitors to New Zealand, there were 529,300 visitor arrivals in December 2018, the highest for any month, Stats NZ said, adding December 2018's figure was 15,900 higher than December 2017, which was the previous record holder.

Visitor arrivals in December averaged 17,100 a day, it said, adding the U.S. led the increase in visitor arrivals for December 2018, up 4,900 compared with December 2017.

Visitors stayed for longer holidays in December. The median length of stay for visitors arriving in December 2018 was 13 days. This compared with nine days for the 2018 year, Stats NZ said.

"Visitors tend to stay longer than usual in December months," population insights senior manager Brooke Theyers said in a statement, adding this is because more travelers visit family and friends, and fewer visitors arrive for business and conferences.