Strong growth in overseas visitor numbers, together with a buoyant domestic tourism market, contributed to a record $3.8 billion increase in tourism spending in the past year.
Statistics New Zealand national accounts senior manager Daniel Griffiths points out that the increase in domestic spending is particularly strong in the passenger transport, retail and hospitality sectors.
Domestic tourism spending increased 7.4% or $1.4 billion to $20.2 billion. Total tourism expenditure increased 12.2% to $34.7 billion following a 10.3% increase in the previous year.
Spending by international tourists in New Zealand in the year ended March 2016 climbed to $14.5 billion – an increase of 19.6% – according to the Tourism Satellite Account: 2016. This follows a 17.1% increase on the previous year. The number of short-term international visitors increased 10.4% over the same period.
“Increasing visitor numbers from across key international markets, on the back of expanding airline and cruise capacity, drove the increase in spending by international tourists,” says Daniel Griffiths.
Other key provisional estimates for the year ended March
International tourism expenditure contributed 20.7% to New Zealand’s total exports of goods and services. Tourism generated a direct contribution to GDP of $12.9 billion or 5.6%.
The indirect value of industries supporting tourism generated an additional $9.8 billion for tourism – 4.3% of GDP. Some 188,136 people were directly employed in tourism, which is 7.5% of the total number of people employed in the country.
Tourists generated $2.8 billion in GST revenue.
