Annual international visitor spend passes $10 billion

20 May 2016

Annual international visitor spend passes $10 billion for the first time

International visitor spend passed $10 billion for the first time, growing by 25 percent in the March 2016 year, shown by the latest International Visitor Survey released today by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).

MBIE’s Sector Trends Manager Peter Ellis says, “Spend of all major markets and by all purposes of visit were growing. In particular, United States (up 46 per cent to $1.2 billion), China (up 41 per cent to $1.7 billion) and Japan (up 35 per cent to $259 million) have showed significant growth in the March 2016 year.

“China visitor spend has continued to grow rapidly in this period and is still the largest contributor to the expenditure growth - increasing $0.5 billion in the March 2016 year. At the same time Australia, - currently New Zealand’s largest tourism market - has kept growing steadily, up 15 per cent to $2.5 billion,” Mr Ellis says.

These latest results show there is continued growth across all other tourism markets.

The International Visitor Survey (IVS) measures the expenditure and travel patterns of international visitors to New Zealand. Data includes expenditure, places visited, activities/attractions, accommodation and transport. It is based on results from approximately 9,100 visitors departing New Zealand airports. Summary statistics are available in the IVS key data table here.

The data is also available on the New Zealand Tourism Dashboard interactive web tool.

MBIE is currently developing estimates of monthly tourism regional spend that will support the industry by providing further insight into where both domestic and international tourists are spending their money. The first release of the Monthly Regional Tourism Estimates will be in early June.

If you would like to be notified when new tourism data including the new Monthly Regional Tourism Estimates are available, you can subscribehere

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