Our take on the latest Tourism data (Thu 22 Nov 2018)
Visitor arrivals
Arrivals from
+4.8%pa
As at October 2018
NZ tourist departures
Small markets
The key numbers...
- It's not surprising that the number of New Zealanders holidaying overseas has been climbing during the past year (as Statistics NZ has highlighted). Our population is still increasing, the economy is running smoothly, and international travel prices have been at their lowest levels since 2009.
- October arrivals data highlights burgeoning growth in inbound tourism from smaller markets, while growth in arrivals from Australia and China remains subdued.
- With arrivals from Australia and China struggling to gain momentum, we expect total arrivals growth to remain relatively soft in the coming months.
Tourism growth - who's important
Contribution to 3 month annual growth
...and our reaction
- Visitor arrivals climbed 4.1% from the three months to October last year.
- Australian arrivals, being the biggest contributor to tourist numbers in New Zealand, only grew 2.8% from the previous year, but still made the biggest contribution to arrivals growth (of any one country).
- Arrivals from the US were up 12% from the three months to October 2017.
- South Korea made the third biggest, albeit negative, contribution to tourism in the three months to October, with South Korean visitor numbers down 18% from the previous year.
- However, broad growth in arrivals across the smaller visitor markets combined to drive total tourism numbers higher.
- In the three months to October, New Zealand citizen departures were up 5.6% from a year ago.
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