Tourism by the Numbers
The contribution made by tourism to the NZ economy:
- Total annual tourism expenditure is $39.1 billion - $107 million per day.
- Annual international tourism expenditure is $16.2 billion – $44 million per day.
- Annual domestic tourism expenditure is $23.0 billion – $63 million per day.
- Total annual tourism expenditure has increased by $11.9 billion or 44% in the past five years.
- Tourism is our biggest export industry, contributing 21% of foreign exchange earnings.
- Tourism generates a direct annual contribution to gdp of $15.9 billion, or 6.1%, and a further indirect contribution of $11.1 billion, another 4.3%.
- 216,000 people are directly and another 149,000 indirectly employed in tourism in new zealand – almost 1 in 7 jobs.
- The annual gst paid by tourists is $3.7 billion, including $1.7 billion collected from international visitors.
Source: Statistics NZ Tourism Satellite Account year ended March 2018 (issued December 2018).
Other Data Sources
International Travel and Migration(ITM), Statistics NZ
International arrivals by market, arrivals card based, released monthly.
Includes breakdown by visitor type (holiday, visiting friends or relatives, business, education, conference, other). Approximately 50% of visitors are holidaymakers and tourism nz usually refers to this subset of arrivals rather than the total.
International Visitor Survey(IVS), MBIE
Estimated annual spend by market, survey based, released quarterly.
Does not include air nz fares or short stay students, so is approx. 40% lower than the official statistics nz measurement of international tourism ($11.2b v $16.2b). estimates by market can fluctuate significantly from quarter to quarter.
Monthly Regional Tourism Estimates (MRTEs), MBIE
Estimated regional spend by domestic and international markets, electronic transactions based, released monthly.
Does not include air nz fares and other spending captured in Tourism Satellite Account. Monthly estimates by region can fluctuate; annual estimates have a higher degree of certainty.
Commercial Accommodation Monitor(CAM), Stats NZ/MBIE
Regional guest nights in commercial accommodation, reported, released monthly.
data from contributing commercial accommodation providers. Does not include B&Bs or holiday houses and other non-commercial accommodation.
