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Wheeling luggage at airport - Source: ONE News -
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Annual visitor arrivals from Australia topped one million for the first time in the year to May, despite the global economy plunging into its worst downturn in decades.
Statistics New Zealand says the visitor arrivals from across the Tasman were up 35,500 or 4%, from a year earlier, and double the figure of a decade ago.
In contrast, the visitor arrivals from all countries during the year were down 64,200, or 3%, from the May 2008 year.
Annual visitor numbers were down from each of the five largest sources of visitors after Australia.
Numbers from Britain were down 27,300 or 9%, from Korea they were down 25,500 or 28%, from Japan down 22,100 or 19%, from the United States down 21,200 or 10%, and from China down 15,400 or 12%.
A rise in the number of visitors from Australia last month helped lift the total number of short-term overseas visitors to this country in May to 141,900. This was up 1400 or 1% from May 2008 and was the highest ever recorded for a May month.
Australian visitor numbers were up 9200 last month from a year earlier, but those from Korea were down 3400, from China down 2700, and from Japan down 2500.
Despite the rise in arrivals, the estimated average number of visitors in this country each day last month was down 5% from May 2008 to 103,500.
Since December 2004, visitor arrivals from Japan have dropped for all except three months when compared with the same month of the previous year, SNZ said.
Visitors from Korea have dropped for all except one month since May 2007, with the drop last month the largest over that period. Visitors from China dropped in nine of the past 12 months.
New Zealand residents left on 163,700 short-term overseas trips last month, down 10,300 or 6% from the 174,000 departures in May 2008.
Trips to Australia were down 5900, while those to Britain were down 900, and to Fiji were down 800.
For the May year, New Zealand residents made 1.93m short term departures, down 70,100, or 4%, from a year earlier.
Key: NZ accessible to Australians
Prime Minister and Minister of Tourism, John Key says, "our decision in March to boost marketing in Australia by $2.5 million was based on very sound principles. In tough economic times the New Zealand market is still very accessible to Australians wanting to holiday, and we recognised the need to take advantage of that."
Since the 100% New Zealand Pure campaign started 10 years ago, the number of Australian visitors has almost doubled.
"The one millionth Australian visitor is a major milestone for the New Zealand tourism industry and a great achievement given the challenges being faced at the moment."
