Wednesday 21 March 2012
Tourism Businesses Not As Optimistic After RWC High
Since achieving a record high in business confidence during the Rugby World Cup, tourism businesses are not feeling as
optimistic about the next three months as they were in the previous two quarters.
According to the Tourism Industry Monitor published today, business confidence dropped to 60 in the March 2012 quarter,
down from a record high of 144 in the September 2011 quarter, and 107 in the December 2011 quarter. Index values of
lower than 100 indicate more pessimists than optimists.
“Tourism businesses reported a record high in confidence in the September 2011 quarter because of the Rugby World Cup.
Now that it’s over, we are seeing a decline in confidence as well as other factors, such as expected demand and
profitability,” said Peter Ellis, Tourism Research and Evaluation Manager at the Ministry of Economic Development.
“The Tourism Industry Monitor for this quarter shows that the tourism industry expects demand to fall 3.6 percent and
profitability to drop by 3.3 percent over the next three months. Global economic conditions, the international visitor
market and the exchange rate were the main concerns cited by the tourism businesses.”
The majority of the 483 industry survey respondents also indicated that their business performance was in line with
their expectations in the past three months.
The Tourism Industry Monitor is an industry initiative published by the Ministry of Economic Development each quarter to
provide up-to-date information on the performance of the tourism sector.
The March 2012 quarterly report is available on www.med.govt.nz/sectors-industries/tourism/tourism-research-data/other-research-and-reports/tourism-industry-monitor.
ENDS