Visitor Arrivals Up 7 Percent

External Migration: May 2002

There were 118,200 short-term overseas visitor arrivals in New Zealand in May 2002, up 7,300 or 7 percent on May 2001, according to Statistics New Zealand. More visitors came from China (up 1,900 or 51 percent), the United Kingdom (up 1,200 or 15 percent), Korea (up 1,000 or 21 percent) and Australia (up 1,000 or 2 percent).

In the year ended May 2002, there were 1.953 million visitor arrivals, up 83,000 or 4 percent on the previous May year. Four countries ? Australia (up 23,500), Korea (up 23,300), China (up 21,500) and the United Kingdom (up 18,100) ? contributed most of the increase.

Seasonally adjusted visitor arrivals rose 15 percent between April and May 2002. This follows a 19 percent decrease from March to April 2002.

New Zealand residents departed on 109,300 short-term overseas trips in May 2002, down 800 or 1 percent on May 2001. There were fewer departures to Australia (down 5,000 or 9 percent), but more departures to Fiji (up 2,200 or 48 percent) and China (up 700 or 64 percent).

In the year ended May 2002, New Zealand resident short-term departures numbered 1.267 million, down 23,000 or 2 percent on the year ended May 2001.

Permanent and long-term (PLT) arrivals exceeded departures by 600 in the month of May 2002, compared with a net outflow of 2,500 in May 2001. This change was the result of 1,300 more arrivals and 1,900 fewer departures.

In the year ended May 2002, PLT arrivals reached a new high of 91,200, up 23,000 on the last May year. In contrast, there were 19,400 fewer PLT departures. The overall result was a net inflow of 31,200 PLT migrants in 2002, compared with a net outflow of 11,100 migrants in the previous year. The net inflow for the May 2002 year, which was the highest recorded net inflow for any year, was only 300 less than the combined net outflows for the previous three years. There were significant net inflows from China (13,500), India (5,500), the United Kingdom (4,500), South Africa (3,200), Fiji (2,400) and Japan (2,300), but a net outflow to Australia of 13,600, in the May 2002 year.

PLT arrivals of New Zealand citizens were up by 3,700 (to 24,800) and non-New Zealand citizens were up by 19,300 (to 66,400) in the May 2002 year, compared with the May 2001 year. There were also PLT departures of 45,000 New Zealand citizens (down 18,800) and 14,900 non-New Zealand citizens (down 600), resulting in a net PLT outflow of 20,200 New Zealand citizens and a net PLT inflow of 51,400 non-New Zealand citizens in the May 2002 year.

Brian Pink
Government Statistician
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