Media Release

13 February 2012

Auckland secures 10 per cent increase in visitor nights for 2011

Auckland has capped off an impressive year of strong visitation with a 10 per cent annual increase in guest nights, against an overall national decline of 07 per cent.

According to the latest figures from Statistics New Zealand Auckland secured 6.26 million guest nights in 2011 and enjoyed the largest annual rise of any region in the country.

Auckland also led the way with its monthly result of a 12 per cent increase in guest nights for December 2011.

Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development Ltd (ATEED) Manager Tourism Jason Hill says it is excellent to see this strong year-on-year growth.

“For the last two years Auckland has shown near-continuous improvement in visitor numbers. Rugby World Cup was an obvious driver for visitation last year, but it is heartening to see the strong numbers through into December,” he says.

For the year end December 2011 Auckland’s international guest nights jumped 11 per cent and domestically they were up 9 per cent.

Mayor Len Brown endorsed the new ten year Auckland Visitor Plan last December and says these figures are a good start for growing the visitor economy.

“These results bode well for realising the targets in Auckland’s Visitor Plan, which aims to grow the visitor economy by 5.5 per cent per annum, and also help make our city a better place to live as well as a better place to visit,” he says.

Tourism is big business in Auckland, generating in excess of $3 billion of GDP per annum and supporting more than 50,000 full time jobs.

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