The elfin tour guide Daisy Jane calls out, "Meet by the trolls", to a group of visitors as they prepare for their behind-the-scenes tour at Weta, the special-effects workshop for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies.

Outside, instead of the usual "Don't walk on the grass" signs, visitors are warned not to climb on the pair of hulking giants guarding the entrance to the Weta Cave museum and gift store in Wellington, New Zealand.

Daisy Jane, a special-effects technician and an expert in chain mail, guides visitors through the workshop, explaining the painstaking work involved in creating swords, helmets and the mail.

The group walks past a glass case filled with skulls and is shocked into silence as Daisy holds up a silicon lizard, cast from the body of a staff member's dead pet.

She hurriedly explains the pet had a long and happy life – and is now helping technicians understand reptilian anatomy so they can better create believable mythical creatures.

With the final movie in the Hobbit trilogy, The Battle of the Five Armies, set for release next month, "Middle Earth" tours of New Zealand show no signs of decline. Since the release of the first Lord of the Rings movie in 2001, tourists have been flocking to see the film locations.

As soon as tourists step off the plane in Wellington, the home of movie director Sir Peter Jackson, they are greeted by a collection of creatures from Middle Earth.

Wellington Airport has installed a 4.25-metre-long sculpture of Smaug the dragon in its terminal, the latest in the line up of mystical magical creatures which have made a home there.

Two great eagles, one ridden by Gandalf the wizard, hover over the concourse, while a floating Gollum hunts fish above visitors to the cafe.

But it's not just in the capital city that tourists can follow in the footsteps of Hobbits. Movie locations are dotted the length and breadth of the country.

Writer and photographer Ian Brodie has published an official Hobbit Location Guidebook, which fans can use to plot a course through this South Pacific version of Middle Earth.

In the index, New Zealand place names such as Mirror Lakes and Glenorchy are printed next to Tolkien's Misty Mountains and the Glittering Caves of Aglarond.

For Brodie, a long-time Tolkien fan, it is no stretch at all to imagine New Zealand as Tolkien's Middle Earth.

"I first read Lord of the Rings back in 1972 and immediately the landscape of New Zealand was in my mind the landscape of Middle Earth and I always have thought that," he says.

The Hobbiton film set near Matamata in the North Island is one of the most popular destinations and expects to receive 300,000 visitors this year.

The site is set on a working sheep and cattle farm, and was used to portray the Hobbit village in the movies, its lush green hills studded with the round doors of Hobbit hole entrances.

Marketing manager Shayne Forrest says some of the visitors are passionate Tolkien fans while others just want to see how a movie set is created.

"We do have die-hard Hobbit fans, people that come in and they are in costume, which is always good fun," Forrest says.

"Some people come in and start crying just because they have been waiting so long to get to a piece of Middle Earth, but 40 per cent of our visitors haven't seen the movies, or read the books."

The site was rebuilt in 2009 and now boasts its own Green Dragon Inn where the bartender pours specially brewed Hobbit beers, ciders and ales from the barrel, just like in the movies.

Tolkien tourism has become big business in New Zealand: 13 per cent of visitors arriving in the past 12 months said the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings movies had influenced their decision to visit.

But while tourists to New Zealand thrill at seeing Middle Earth, after 13 years of Hobbit hype, the gloss is wearing off for some Kiwis.

"I"m over it," one says, while another, a tourism worker, says she's seen none of the movies, and doesn't intend to. "It's not really my thing."

Tourism New Zealand doesn't expect the attraction for overseas visitors to wear off any time soon, though.

An official, Justin Watson, says New Zealand is indelibly fixed in people's minds as a Hobbit destination.

"When you talk to people about New Zealand, some might recall the (national rugby team) All Blacks, but the vast majority say 'The Lord of the Rings' or 'The Hobbit' even ahead of anything else," Watson said.