Domestic visitor spend exceeds $7b level

Media Statement

Domestic visitor spend exceeds $7b level

EMBARGOED until: Friday 1 December 2006, 12:00 noon

Research just released by the Ministry of Tourism shows that domestic travellers within New Zealand spent $7.1 billion in the year to June 2006, an increase of 4.9% compared to the same period the previous year.

“It’s encouraging to see the spend increase by domestic travellers. A substantial proportion of this increase has been driven by holiday travellers rather than those on business or visiting friends and family,” says Bruce Bassett, Research Manager, Ministry of Tourism.

“The research shows that spending on overnight trips increased by 10.4% to $4.6 billion, even though the number of overnight trips declined by 2.7% to 14.3 million."

Day trip spending fell by 4.0% to $2.5 billion. The actual number of day trips fell by 5.2% to 29.1 million.

Spending by those on holiday increased by the most significant proportion (up 15.3% to $2.8b), followed by those visiting friends and relatives (up 4.6% to $2b), and business travellers (up 3.3% to $1.7b).

Mr Bassett said the data showed that much of the spend increase was driven by higher transport related expenditure that increased by 14.9% to $2.2 billion – a result attributed to high fuel prices and a slight increase of 1.1% in the number of nights spent away from home."

The Domestic Travel Survey is a telephone survey of 15,000 New Zealand residents undertaken throughout the year. A range of data and reports from the survey are available on the Ministry of Tourism’s research website – www.tourismresearch.govt.nz For further information, contact Markus Landvogt – telephone (04) 474 2683 or email markus.landvogt@tourism.govt.nz.

ENDS

Ministry of Tourism:
www.tourism.govt.nz
www.tourismresearch.govt.nz

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