Visitor Arrivals Up 11 Percent

Visitor Arrivals Up 11 Percent

There were 244,300 short-term overseas visitor arrivals in New Zealand in January 2004, up 23,500 or 11 percent on January 2003, according to Statistics New Zealand.

In January 2004, there were more visitors from Australia (up 14,300 or 27 percent), the United Kingdom (up 3,300 or 9 percent), China (up 1,500 or 20 percent) and Hong Kong (up 1,300 or 50 percent), but fewer visitors from Japan (down 1,200 or 8 percent). The number of stay days for all visitor arrivals in January 2004 decreased by 3 percent on the previous January, from 6.12 million days to 5.94 million days. The average length of stay was 24 days in January 2004, compared with 28 days in January 2003.

In the year ended January 2004, there were 2.130 million visitor arrivals, up 68,600 or 3 percent on the previous January year. There were more visitors from Australia (up 81,400), the United Kingdom (up 27,900), the United States (up 7,500) and Germany (up 3,300), compared with the year ended January 2003.

Seasonally adjusted monthly visitor arrivals were down by less than 1 percent in January 2004, following a rise of 5 percent in December 2003.

New Zealand residents departed on 80,400 short-term overseas trips in January 2004, an increase of 18 percent or 12,300 on January 2003. There were more trips to Australia (up 9,000 or 26 percent), the United States (up 800 or 24 percent) and China (up 700 or 40 percent). In the year ended January 2004, New Zealand resident short-term departures numbered 1.387 million, up 7 percent on the year ended January 2003.

Permanent and long-term (PLT) arrivals exceeded departures by 4,000 in January 2004, compared with 5,600 in the previous January month. This decrease can be attributed to 1,100 fewer PLT arrivals and 400 more PLT departures. PLT arrivals have now dropped in each of the past 11 months, when compared with the same months of the previous year, and PLT departures have increased in each of the past six months.

The seasonally adjusted series recorded a net PLT inflow of 2,500 in January 2004, up from 1,500 in December 2003.

In the year ended January 2004, there was a net migration gain of 33,300 – 15 percent lower than the net inflow of 39,000 people in the previous January year. This resulted from 91,500 PLT arrivals (down 4,700), and 58,200 PLT departures (up 1,000) in 2004. Compared with the January 2003 year, New Zealand citizen arrivals were up 2,200 and New Zealand citizen departures were down 2,400. In contrast, non-New Zealand citizen arrivals were down 6,900 and non-New Zealand citizen departures were up 3,400.

There were net inflows from China (10,500), India (4,700) and Japan (2,100) in the year ended January 2004. There was also a substantial net inflow from the United Kingdom (10,500), up 63 percent on the January 2003 year figure (6,400). Conversely, there was a net outflow to Australia of 10,200 in the January 2004 year, compared with net outflows of 11,700 in the January 2003 year and 21,000 in the January 2002 year.

Brian Pink

Government Statistician

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