Japan charters boom for Air NZ

by Jason Krupp

August 19 (BusinessDesk) – Air New Zealand will be more than tripling its charter flights from Japan to New Zealand this summer in response to a boom in visitors from the high-spending tourism market.

“This is a huge increase from the four charter flights we operated last summer, and is solid proof of the strong market recovery we are witnessing here,” said Edward Overy, Air New Zealand’s general manager for Japan.

The national carrier said it will operate 14 return charter flights to Auckland from nine departure points across Japan between Dec. and April 2011, and could potentially add another 3,000 visitors to the summer tally.

Short term visitors from Japan jumped 123% in June from the same month a year earlier, to 5,240, according to data from Statistics NZ, but still well below historical highs and down 28% from June 2008 levels.

Japan, New Zealand’s fifth largest tourism market, contributed almost 85,000 visitors last year with numbers recovering in the wake of the global recession.

Additionally, Japanese tourists also spend more than any other nationality, averaging $4,600 in expenditure per visitor.

The chartered service is being offered from Nagoya, Fukuoka, Sapporo, Okinawa, Sendai, Kumamoto, Hiroshima, Miyazaki and Kagoshima.

(BusinessDesk) 11:03:59

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