Holiday timing affects travel

Embargoed until 10:45am – 21 July 2008

Holiday timing affects travel

New Zealand residents departed on 186,000 short-term trips overseas in June 2008, down 22,300 (11 percent) from June 2007, Statistics New Zealand said today. This coincided with a later start to the winter school holidays, beginning in July in 2008 compared with June in 2007. There were fewer departures to Australia (down 12,900 or 14 percent), the United Kingdom (down 1,600 or 10 percent) and China (down 1,000 or 19 percent). In the June 2008 year, there were 1.977 million resident departures, up 53,200 (3 percent) from the June 2007 year.

Short-term visitor arrivals numbered 142,400 in June 2008, down 2 percent from the 145,500 recorded in June 2007. There were more visitor arrivals from Australia (up 1,200 or 2 percent) but fewer from the United States (down 1,800 or 12 percent), China (down 1,600 or 24 percent) and Korea (down 1,300 or 18 percent). The 2.480 million visitor arrivals recorded in the June 2008 year were up 22,000 (1 percent) from the previous year.

There was a net permanent and long-term (PLT) migration inflow of 4,700 people in the year ended June 2008, slightly above the recent low of 4,600 in the February 2008 year. Net migration inflows were recorded from the United Kingdom (7,300), India (4,400), the Philippines (3,500), Fiji (2,600), South Africa (2,400), China (2,200) and Germany (1,600) in the year ended June 2008. However, there was a net outflow of 31,900 to Australia, the highest since the net outflow of 32,000 in the year ended May 1989.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, PLT arrivals exceeded departures by 500 for the month of June 2008, consistent with the net PLT series monthly average of 500 between January 2007 and May 2008.

Geoff Bascand
Government Statistician
21 July 2008

ENDS

internationaltravelandmigrationjun08hotp.pdf

emjun08alltables.xls

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