Air NZ triples Japanese charters

An Air New Zealand Boeing 767 arriving at Auckland International Airport. Photo / Supplied

Air New Zealand will be more than tripling its charter flights from Japan to New Zealand this summer in response to a boom in visitors from the high-spending tourism market.

"This is a huge increase from the four charter flights we operated last summer, and is solid proof of the strong market recovery we are witnessing here," said Edward Overy, Air New Zealand's general manager for Japan.

The national carrier said it will operate 14 return charter flights to Auckland from nine departure points across Japan between December and April 2011 using Boeing 767s.

This could potentially add another 3,000 visitors to the summer tally, the airline said.

Short term visitors from Japan jumped 123 per cent in June from the same month a year earlier, to 5,240, according to data from Statistics NZ, but still well below historical highs and down 28 per cent from June 2008 levels.

Japan, New Zealand's fifth largest tourism market, contributed almost 85,000 visitors last year with numbers recovering in the wake of the global recession.

Additionally, Japanese tourists also spend more than any other nationality, averaging $4600 in expenditure per visitor.

The chartered service is being offered from Nagoya, Fukuoka, Sapporo, Okinawa, Sendai, Kumamoto, Hiroshima, Miyazaki and Kagoshima.