Tourism jump welcome, but low spending Aussies dominate

Auckland tourism has suffered by a lack of Chinese visitors coming on group tours. There has been a big jump in the number of Australian tourists. Photo / Dean Purcell.

Tourism Auckland says visitor numbers in New Zealand's biggest city are still "patchy", despite positive figures for December international tourist numbers being released yesterday.

The Statistics New Zealand figures indicated a possible rebound in the tourism market, with arrivals up 5.9 per cent (or 19,130 total visitors) in December 2009, compared with the same month last year.

There was also a big jump in December visitor numbers from across the Tasman, with 146,880 arrivals - up 10.5 per cent on the year before.

Tourism Auckland CEO Graeme Osbourne said that while the arrivals data showed a record year, the figures benefited from significant growth in Australian visitor numbers.

Up to 40 per cent of Australian visitors came to New Zealand to visit friends and relatives, meaning they spent less time in the country and often spent less money than other tourists.

"They are still a valued visitor, but you don't get the yield and stay out of the Aussie arrival as you do out of the long-haul arrival," he said.

"Of course there is cause for celebration with the arrivals numbers, but the underlying issue was that the other markets were weak."

Osbourne said Auckland particularly suffered from a 16.2 per cent downturn in Chinese visitor numbers in December.

"[Chinese visitors] are especially valuable to Auckland because it's a group market, and the group markets favour the Auckland-Waitomo-Rotorua route," he said.

"And therefore Auckland is impacted by the weakness in the Chinese market."

But he said the Chinese market should recover quickly, with the medium-term prospects for a recovery in Chinese visitor numbers looking positive.

Spending by Air NZ and Tourism NZ in China should help, said Osbourne, as would the upcoming Expo, being held in China.

Brian Roberts, general manager of Destination Northland, said the region's tourism industry had seen a very successful summer so far.

He said the fact that Northland had enjoyed a very hot, dry summer had helped lure Kiwi visitors in from regions where the weather had not been as good.

"We've noticed a really positive trend for Northland for the past six months," he said. "Things have really picked up for us."

Osbourne said the numbers of international visitors had also increased, after a 40 per cent decline in European and American tourist numbers last year due to the financial crises

He said one in nine Northlanders were employed in by the tourism industry, compared to one in ten on average in the rest of the country.

"Tourism is a labour intensive area so a boost in tourism always boosts the number of jobs," he said. "Other sectors are struggling due to the drought, so tourism is a good offset."