Domestic visitor spend on the up

Domestic visitor spend on the up

Friday 9 March 2007,

11:00am New Ministry of Tourism data shows that domestic travellers within New Zealand spent $7.2 billion in the year to September 2006, an increase of 7.5% compared to the same period the previous year.

“The growth in spend is heartening,” said Bruce Bassett, Research Manager, Ministry of Tourism. “After two years of average performance, the domestic market has experienced a strong lift in travel spending within New Zealand.” Of the 7.5% increase, around 2% can be attributed to rising fuel costs, leaving 5.5% as a true spending increase.

The research shows that average length of stay by overnight travellers increased from 2.9 to 3.0 days. The number of overnight trips increased by 0.4% and the total number of nights increased by 4%. Against this, day trips undertaken by New Zealanders fell by 10.4% over the period.

Mr Bassett said that the switch from day trips to overnight trips made sense in an environment where fuel costs were high. “It’s no surprise that Kiwi travellers are making the most of their opportunity when choosing to travel domestically.

Rather than using petrol money on day trips more are opting to stay over, and to stay longer, and this results in more spending overall.” The Domestic Travel Survey is a telephone survey of 15,000 New Zealand residents undertaken throughout the year. A range of data and reports from the survey are available on the Ministry of Tourism’s research website – www.tourismresearch.govt.nz

ENDS

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