Visitor Arrivals Up 7 Percent

Visitor Arrivals Up 7 Percent

There were 211,700 short-term overseas visitor arrivals in New Zealand in November 2003, up 13,000 or 7 percent on November 2002, according to Statistics New Zealand. This is the first time that more than 200,000 visitors have arrived in New Zealand in a November month.

In November 2003, there were more visitors from Australia (up 7,200 or 14 percent), the United Kingdom (up 2,900 or 12 percent), Korea (up 1,300 or 11 percent), Indonesia (up 1,100 or 250 percent) and the United States (up 1,000 or 5 percent), but fewer visitors from Japan (down 1,200 or 6 percent) and China (down 900 or 11 percent). The number of stay days for all visitor arrivals in November 2003 decreased by 1 percent on the previous November, from 4.71 million days to 4.65 million days. The average length of stay was 22 days in November 2003, compared with 24 days in November 2002.

In the year ended November 2003, there were 2.075 million visitor arrivals, up 55,600 or 3 percent on the previous November year. Holidaymakers accounted for 52 percent of the overseas visitors, while 27 percent came to visit friends and relatives and 10 percent came for business reasons.

There were more visitors from Australia (up 60,400), the United Kingdom (up 24,000), the United States (up 7,800), Germany (up 3,500) and Korea (up 3,400), compared with the year ended November 2002.

Seasonally adjusted visitor arrivals were up by 2 percent in November 2003, following a drop of less than 1 percent in October 2003, when compared with the previous month. New Zealand residents departed on 132,600 short-term overseas trips in November 2003, an increase of 18 percent or 20,200 on November 2002. There were more trips to Australia (up 11,400), China (up 3,100), India (up 1,000) and Fiji (up 900).

In the year ended November 2003, New Zealand resident short-term departures numbered 1.350 million, up 5 percent on the year ended November 2002.

Permanent and long-term (PLT) arrivals exceeded departures by 2,200 in November 2003, compared with 4,700 in November 2002. This decrease can be attributed to 1,500 fewer PLT arrivals and 1,100 more PLT departures. PLT arrivals have now dropped in each of the past nine months, when compared with the same months of the previous year.

The seasonally adjusted series recorded a net PLT inflow of 1,000 in November 2003, down from 1,800 in October 2003. In the year ended November 2003, there was a net migration gain of 36,800 – 4 percent lower than the net inflow of 38,200 people in the previous November year. This resulted from 93,400 PLT arrivals (down 2,600), and 56,700 PLT departures (down 1,200) in 2003.

Compared with the November 2002 year, New Zealand citizen departures were down 4,100 and New Zealand citizen arrivals were up 2,400. In contrast, non-New Zealand citizen arrivals were down 5,000 and non-New Zealand citizen departures were up 2,900.

There were significant net inflows from China (11,700), India (5,000), Japan (2,200), Fiji (1,900), South Africa (1,600) and Korea (1,300) in the year ended November 2003. There was also a substantial net inflow from the United Kingdom (10,000), up 67 percent on the November 2002 year figure (6,000). Conversely, there was a net outflow to Australia of 9,900 in the November 2003 year, compared with net outflows of 12,500 in the November 2002 year and 26,200 in the November 2001 year.

Brian Pink

Government Statistician

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