Tourism hotspot Queenstown is facing a migrant worker crisis during the coronavirus outbreak, with thousands of visitors across tourism and hospitality finding themselves unemployed, unable to return home and asking for more help.

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Thousands of workers are now unemployed, unable to get home and struggling to get help. Source: 1 NEWS

Brazilian Gui Ferreira has called Queenstown home for the last two years but has suddenly lost his hospitality job and income.

"I bought a ticket to leave the country a week before but the flight was cancelled," he told 1 NEWS.

"I've been working here for two years to help people and family. I cannot leave the country and I cannot work anymore."

He's not the only one, with nearly 7000 families and individuals seeking welfare from the district council.

Around three-quarters of them are migrant workers.

"It is stressful and hard, but you cannot control it," Mr Ferreira says.

Queues outside the Salvation Army continue to grow. It's seen demand for support like food parcels spike 600 per cent.

"It's like putting a Band-aid on the Titanic," Salvation Army Queenstown's Lieutenant Andrew Wilson says.

"We can only provide food, clothes and linen, but a number of these people, particularly our migrant community, are facing the need to pay for rent or power."

Civil Defence has been handing out food vouchers while other Government support has included help with accommodation and household items.

"There is a growing humanitarian crisis that needs to be dealt with," Queenstown-Lakes Mayor Jim Boult says.

"People can't be evicted from their house if they are not paying rent at the present time, at the end of lockdown that will cease, they will be evicted, we are gonna have people out on the street."

Civil Defence director Sarah Stuart-Black says it's a difficult situation.

"There's a whole range of workers that might be in New Zealand with different visa requirements, different kinds of restrictions on what they can do and with a number of businesses that might have been directly impacted, they're actually needing some advice."

A new community fund has also been set up and has raised nearly half a million dollars so far.

"There are a portion of migrant workers who do not qualify for any Government funding," says Wakatipu Greatest Needs Fund's Kaye Parker.

"We implore the Government to change that. It is not during lockdown when the first tsunami is coming, it's after lockdown."

More secure solutions are being called for, such as allowing migrant workers to get the job seeker benefit.

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Migrant workers stuck and stressed in Queenstown during coronavirus outbreak - 1News