Hawke's Bay visitor numbers positive for February

Statistics New Zealand has released their latest Commercial Accommodation Monitor (CAM) report, which revealed a return to positive growth for visitor nights. Hawke’s Bay guest nights for February 2012 were up 2% compared to the same period in February 2011. This equates to 2 158 more visitor nights in the region in February.

Domestic visitor nights in Hawke’s Bay were up 11.6% (+8000 visitor nights) whilst International visitor nights were down 14.9% (-5767 nights)

Hawke’s Bay Hotels had the largest increase (up 33.2% or 5010 guest nights) followed closely by Motels (up 2.1% or 1098 guest nights)

Annie Dundas, General Manager of Hawke’s Bay Tourism said she was pleased to see positive news for February visitor nights, particularly the strong domestic visitor numbers. “February is a big month for Hawke’s Bay with two of our three major events on during this time so we would expect to see a good result however the bad weather is still having an impact on weather dependent sectors such a holiday parks which is not great news for those operators”

Nationally figures show 67 000 fewer guest nights or a 2% decline in guest nights in commercial accommodation in February. Hotels showed the largest decrease (down -7.9%) followed closely by Backpacker accommodation (down -3.5%) and motels (down -0.1%).

Hawke’s Bay Tourism is continuing its online, print and search engine advertising to encourage travel in the off seasons.

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