NZ guest nights rise to a record in September, buoyed by tourism

Wednesday 11th November 2015

New Zealand accommodation providers benefited from the highest-ever guests stays in September, as record numbers of tourists travelled the country.

Guest nights increased 5.2 percent to 2.48 million in September from the same month last year to the highest level for a September month since Statistics New Zealand began collecting the data in 1996. International guest nights jumped 7.7 percent while domestic guests advanced 3.9 percent.

New Zealand tourism is booming, with overseas visitor arrivals up 9 percent to a record 3.04 million in the year through September, and arrivals for the month up 12 percent on the year earlier. That's expected to continue as a decline in the value of the New Zealand dollar helps stretch the budget of overseas visitors, prompting them to spend more in New Zealand dollar terms, and making the country a more competitive destination, analysts said.

"There's been quite a pick up in inbound visitors to New Zealand so the tourism industry itself is gaining quite handily at the moment," said ASB Bank chief economist Nick Tuffley. "We think the outlook for tourism and the supporting sectors for that is very encouraging."

South Island guest nights advanced 10.2 percent from September last year, while North Island stays gained 2.4 percent, the statistics agency said.

Guest nights in the Otago region, a key tourism destination including Queenstown, jumped 11.6 percent to 378,000 while Canterbury stays rose 10.6 percent to 332,000 as bed capacity increased again following the earthquakes which devastated many of the city's hotels.

Increased capacity on airline routes through Christchurch, the gateway to the South Island, and to Queenstown, enabled better access to key markets in China and Australia and helped bolster visitor numbers, Tuffley said.

Visitors from China rose 41 percent to a record 25,840 in September, and that trend is expected to continue as consumer spending in China remains robust even as the economy slows, Tuffley said. Chinese visitors are increasingly travelling independently and staying for longer, rather than coming for a brief packaged visit, he said.

"We are really benefiting from the Chinese figuratively spreading their wings and developing a taste for travel and that is a key source of growth in visitor arrivals," Tuffley said.

New Zealand has set new annual records for migration for the past 14 months, and the population growth may be underpinning domestic guest stays, he said.

BusinessDesk.co.nz

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