NZ November guest nights rise, led by hotels

NZ November guest nights rise, led by hotels

By Jason Krupp

Jan. 19 (BusinessDesk) - New Zealand guest nights rose in November after two months of declines, with hotels accounting for much of the return to growth.

The total number of overnight stays rose to 1.4% to a seasonally adjusted 2,711 in November compared to the pervious month, according to the most recent data from Statistics New Zealand. On an annual basis November guest nights rose by 2.1% compared to the same month in the previous year.

Hotels saw the biggest increase in November with 1,013 overnight stays, up 6.7% compared to the same month in 2009.Backpackers rose 0.4% to 413, while motels fell 0.7% to 836 and holiday parks dropped 2% to 423.

"The trend for the total number of guest night shows little movement in 2010, down 0.9% from the October 2009 peak and 2% lower than the highest month of December 2007," the department said.

North Island guest nights rose 2.3% to a seasonally adjusted 1,597 compared to November, while the South Island recorded 1117 overnight stays.

Only five of New Zealand's 12 regions had more guest nights in November compared to the same month a year ago, lead by Auckland with guest nights up 11.7% due to higher domestic visitor numbers.

The largest decrease was recorded on the South Island, where declines in international visitors saw guests nights fall by 9.9% in Southland. This was followed by Otago and Wellington, which both declined 3.5%.

For the November year, domestic visitors accounted for 1.5 million guest nights, up 6.6% from November 2009, while international visitors accounted for 1.2 million guest nights in the same period, down 3.1%.

(BusinessDesk)

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