NEW ZEALAND: New Zealand's Reputation As A Safe Destination Has Made Tourism The Top Foreign Exchange Earner.

Booming tourism is set for even faster growth with a surge in the number of buyers from overseas coming to the New Zealand industry's trade event this week.

The Trenz event in Rotorua has attracted more than 350 tourism and trade buyers from 28 countries, numbers not seen for more than a decade.

Tourism now tops dairy as New Zealand's biggest foreign exchange earner, bringing in more than $11 billion from overseas visitors in the past year, according to industry calculations, and worth close to $30 billion annually when domestic travel is counted.

It is on track to reach a goal of being a $41 billion industry by 2025.

The conference not only attracts buyers who sell packages to future visitors but key industry figures and politicians who are grappling with the consequences of the pressure more than three million overseas tourists a year are putting on tourist facilities and local infrastructure.

The Tourism Industry Association manages Trenz and its chief executive, Chris Roberts, said interest in the three-day event was incredibly strong this year.


"The event is at capacity, with waiting lists for both exhibitors and buyers. That's great news for New Zealand, as a buoyant, high growth tourism industry drives economic wealth and supports thousands of jobs all over the country."

The event was enjoying big growth in buyer numbers out of Australia, China and the United States.

Air New Zealand's new Buenos Aires to Auckland service was also stimulating interest out of Argentina, with seven buyers heading to Trenz, up from three last year.

"New air links between Auckland and other growing Pacific Rim economies, such as Vietnam, have also generated buyer interest from those markets, again highlighting the importance of air connectivity to the tourism industry," said Roberts.

Westpac economist David Norman said New Zealand is benefiting from a global surge in travel, helped by lower air fares and a shift in patterns of consumption.

"We've got this shift towards consumption spending on things like travel services. People are buying less stuff that they fill their houses with and they are switching to online services whether it be streaming video or audio and to travel," he said.

This was apparent in China where the transition to consuming services such as travel was happening at breakneck speed. While Chinese may not be spending at the same rate on places to live or furniture, they are travelling in record numbers and are New Zealand's fastest growing market.

"That's good news for us in many ways, not so good for forestry exports but good news for tourism," said Norman.

New Zealand was benefiting from its reputation as a safe destination.

"You've got a lot of uncertainty in Europe with terror attacks and parts of Asia and anecdotally the interest in parts of Asia of flying to Europe dried up overnight."

In tourism centres there were big shortfalls in accommodation especially in three to five star hotel range.

"We're seeing massive shortfalls in accommodation capacity. There's a missed opportunity and we could be cashing in on that," said Norman.

The shortage in capacity was allowing strong growth in accommodation prices in the major centres pushing domestic tourists out of these markets, especially in the high season. However, regional tourism centres were benefiting from this.

Key themes in tourism
Too much of a good thing?

Research commissioned by Tourism New Zealand and the Tourism Industry Association found 30 per cent of 1000 surveyed were worried future growth may be too high. The Government is poised to spend more to help small towns cope with the influx of visitors.

Building capacity

Healthier airlines are pouring capacity to New Zealand. Hotel building hasn't kept pace but there are some new ones underway and a new government push to attract investment is about to be launched. New generation mega cruise ships are struggling to squeeze into our ports.

Keeping it pure

Tourism organisations are concerned about the state of our lakes and rivers and are pushing hard for stronger action to clean them up. There's also been a multi-pronged campaign to get Wicked Campers with offensive slogans off the road.

Becoming one

Australia and New Zealand's tourism industry groups are calling for a permanent transtasman visa that would allow international tourists to travel between both countries with a regional visa. This moves on and off the political agenda in both countries.

CHINA: Chinese New Year Brings Growth And Change

As we look ahead to what ‘the year of the monkey’ has in store for the tourism sector it’s a good time to reflect on the changing face of our active Chinese market.

Growth from China has been accelerating with a staggering 34.4 per cent increase for the 2015 year over 2014. Although recent media attention points to a cooling Chinese economy we’re not expecting tourism growth to slow down any time soon with the current New Zealand summer set to be the strongest yet.

Increased air capacity from the two direct carriers, China Southern Airlines and Air New Zealand has been supplemented with new players Air China and China Eastern also establishing year-round services in 2015. The China Southern flights directly to Christchurch have also opened a direct route to the South Island.

Chinese New Year is the most significant holiday period for both domestic and international travel on the Chinese calendar. We’re expecting to welcome around 70,000 Chinese visitors in the four weeks surrounding the actual holiday, 8 February. This would set another new record for China and be 30 per cent higher than last year’s golden travel period of 55,000.

Of more significance than volume is the benefit to the New Zealand economy in terms of value. Average expenditure per Chinese visitor was $5,100 (Sept IVS); a whopping 30 per cent increase for the year. Put into context, the China market is now on a par with our more mature markets of the UK and US average expenditure per arrival at $5,400 and $4,800 respectively.

In addition to outstanding growth, the face of Chinese travel has changed significantly, with the China market maturing more quickly than any other market. As recently as two years ago, the Chinese market was much more heavily skewed towards guided tours (53 per cent) with just 17 per cent in the FIT segment.

The market has progressed quickly to more independent style travel with FIT now comprising 31 per cent of the market. More Chinese visitors are choosing to rent a car and self-drive now than ever before which means we’re seeing more Chinese nationals venturing off the well-beaten Auckland-Rotorua-Queenstown track and exploring further afield. And as the Chinese are becoming more experienced independent travellers they are participating in more activities too. The most popular activities among Chinese visitors are visiting beaches and other natural attractions, geothermal areas, seeing native birds and visiting farms and orchards. Chinese holiday visitors now stay an average of 8.3 days compared with 6.2 days in 2010.

The China market has grown quickly, diversified quickly and is maturing quickly. We can’t predict the future with certainty, but we can prepare for it by learning and sharing as much as possible about catering for new markets and doing what we can to enhance visitor satisfaction.

Media reports have recently raised capacity issues with some operators reporting to have been fully booked for several months prior to Chinese New Year. Part of Tourism New Zealand’s four-pronged strategy to deal with high-season capacity issues is to drive shoulder period travel as hard as possible. We’re also focussed on attracting the highest-value segments from every market, spreading visitors throughout the country and minimising the impact of tourism on the environment.

Tourism New Zealand’s China Toolkit is available along with a range of other market insights to help you develop and deliver products Chinese visitors value and enjoy.

MBIE’s recently completed China FIT Visitor Market Research is being shared with industry currently and points to opportunities to support up-and-coming independent travellers in need of good quality professional guidance. It also emphasises the need for more Mandarin speakers and translated information.

Tourism New Zealand is also involved in a number of cross-agency initiatives to support safer driving by international visitors. These initiatives, tailored to individual markets include a video by Chinese celebrity influencer Huang Lei with key messages on keeping safe on our roads. Filmed in New Zealand, this video showcases our unique set of driving conditions and is promoted by TNZ’s in-market China team. Also, Tourism New Zealand’s online safer driving training module for travel trade has been completed by more than 2,000 offshore agents since it launched in July 2015.

It’s great to see an increasing number of Chinese New Year festivals and parades which are most prevalent in our main centres. This year, some celebrations in Auckland occurred two weeks early so as not to coincide with Waitangi Day celebrations. Let the celebrations continue!

NEW ZEALAND: Benefits From Tourism Boom

Figures out today show the positive impact tourism continues to have on regional economic growth.

The Regional Tourism Estimates for year ending March 2015 have been released today by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

“Tourism continues to go from strength to strength, and these latest figures show that it isn't just the major tourist destinations that are benefiting,” says associate tourism minister Paula Bennett.

“Leading Regional Tourism Organisations (RTOs) were in Whanganui, Bay of Plenty and Christchurch, which saw domestic expenditure increase by more than 12 per cent over the previous year.

“Key regional economic growth areas like Northland and the Manawatu also posted impressive results, with expenditure increasing by $38 million and $57 million respectively.

“International expenditure was up by over 24 per cent in South Canterbury, Rotorua, and Queenstown RTOs, showing those markets continue to hold particular appeal for overseas visitors.”

Paula says 2015 has been a big year for tourism, with New Zealand welcoming its three millionth visitor for the first time, and total tourism expenditure increasing by 10 per cent on 2014 to nearly $30 billion.

Tourism now represents 17.4 per cent of total exports, up from 15 per cent, and is the country's second largest export.

Tourism is worth $10.6 billion, or nearly five per cent of the country's GDP, and one in every eight jobs is now directly or indirectly related to tourism.

The growth in tourism, along with success in other exports industries such as international education, ICT, wool and wine, is contributing to New Zealand's increasingly diverse and growing economy.

NEW ZEALAND: New Zealand Hotel Council

New Zealand Hotel Council is an Incorporated Society whose members include the international chain, independent, privately-owned and boutique hotels throughout the country.

The Council is actively engaged in activities that provide tangible benefit and leadership to its members.

The New Zealand Hotel Council:
• Represents the interests of New Zealand’s international chain, large independent and privately owned hotels around the country.
• Has over 120 members, largely in eight tourism centres (Auckland, Rotorua, Central Park, Wellington, Blenheim/Marlborough, Christchurch, Dunedin and Queenstown), account for around 80% of total hotel capacity and close to 100% of ‘large hotel’ inventory.
• Collectively, NZHC members operate over 17,100 hotel rooms, control assets with a capital value in excess of NZ$3.3 billion, generate annual revenue of over NZ$825 million, and employ in excess of 9500 full and part time staff.


Contact Details

Contact
Rachael Shadbolt

Phone
+64 4 495 0814

Mobile
+64 21 679 664

Address
Travel and Tourism House
79 Boulcott St
Wellington
New Zealand
PO Box 1697

Email
exec@nzhc.org.nz

Website
www.nzhc.org.nz