Record Month For Rotorua’s Accomodation Sector

Major Events Lead To Record Month For Rotorua’s Accomodation Sector
 
ROTORUA, Tuesday 30th April, 2013: Rotorua’s plethora of successful large events over summer have resulted in its highest ever volume of domestic visitor nights in commercial accommodation for a February month.
 
Visitor nights rose 19.2 per cent to 80,500 during February 2013 compared to a national decrease of 4.0 per cent against the same period in 2012, as outlined in Statistics New Zealand’s February 2013 Commercial Accommodation Monitor released earlier this month.
 
By contrast to the national figures, the Central North Island had good growth in domestic visitor nights during February.  Rotorua’s whopping 19.2 per cent boost was the key contributor to the region’s growth, but Bay of Plenty (up 7.1 per cent), Taupo (up 1.9 per cent) and Ruapehu (up 2.6 per cent) also benefited from more domestic visitor nights.
 
Destination Rotorua Marketing general manager, Oscar Nathan, says several key events drew big domestic crowds to Rotorua in February and contributed to the extremely positive statistics.

“Te Matatini - the national kapa haka festival, was held at Rotorua International Stadium which attracted thousands of participants and spectators. The inaugural Rotorua Bike Festival, the popular annual Raggamuffin music festival, and the Australasia IPSC Handgun Championships also contributed to strong demand for commercial accommodation.”
 
“We are very encouraged by the success of these events and as a result we have a renewed focus on attracting more high-quality national and international events to our city in the coming years,” says Nathan.
 
He adds, the Commercial Accommodation Monitor is an important benchmark of how Rotorua is doing on a national scale against a number of indicators and February’s results highlighted a lot of positives for the region.
 
“The Monitor also showed increased international visitor activity in Rotorua during February.  International visitor nights spent in Rotorua’s commercial accommodation were up 15.2 per cent compared to February last year, versus an 8.3 per cent increase nationally,” he says.
 
It also showed that Rotorua’s hotel and motel sectors did very well overall, with hotels up 22.5 per cent and motels up 27.3 per cent year-on-year. 

The city’s hotels and motels weren’t the only ones to benefit from Rotorua’s rise in popularity – the tourism attraction sites also did a roaring trade.
 
In February there was a 12.3 per cent increase in total visits to attractions participating in the Rotorua Attraction and Activities Monitor, compared to the same time last year.
 
The change in timing of Chinese New Year from January last year to February this year was also a key contributor to February’s growth, with Chinese visits to Rotorua attractions increasing from 34,200 to 63,000.
 
Nathan says Rotorua’s tourism leaders will take great heart from the latest statistics, and will continue to focus on effective ways of marketing their businesses and the region as a whole.
 
“These results are really encouraging and we’re confident our nationwide ‘Famously Rotorua’ campaign, which launched late last year, will pay big dividends over the next three years by attracting even more domestic visitors here than ever before.”
 
Editor’s note: Statistics within this press release have been gathered from the reports below.

Rotorua Commercial Accommodation Monitor
Compiled by Statistics New Zealand this monthly report provides a detailed analysis of key performance measures for Rotorua’s commercial accommodation.
http://www.rotoruanz.com/downloads/pdfs/CAMFeb13.pdf
 
Statistics NZ Commercial Accommodation Monitor Commentary
http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/industry_sectors/accommodation/AccommodationSurvey_HOTPFeb13/Commentary.aspx
 
Rotorua Tourism In Focus
Compiled by Destination Rotorua Marketing this monthly report provides an overview of national and Rotorua specific visitor statistics.
www.rotoruanz.com/downloads/pdfs/RTIFFeb13.pdf
 
ENDS

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