Destination New Zealand is hot again

By CHRIS DANIELS tourism writer

The tourism industry is hailing latest visitor arrival numbers that show a 29 per cent jump from the year before, with 132,700 people coming here last month.

But enthusiasm about the increase has been tempered by the damaging effect of last year's Sars outbreak on Asian tourism.

Tourism New Zealand chief executive George Hickton said all key markets were performing well, and it was particularly good to see strong signs of recovery from the Japanese market, which had grown four months in a row.

Visitor numbers from Japan, traditionally the most "sensitive travel market", had dropped more than half during the worst months of Sars and were down in 11 months last year, long after the Sars scare had quietened.

Japan provided 11,664 visitors last month, up 92.5 per cent from the same month last year and up 10 per cent from 2002.

Across all the Asian markets, numbers were up 82.2 per cent, but still slightly below 2002 figures.

Short-erm departures of New Zealanders were up 16 per cent on May last year.

Government statistician Brian Pink said this meant that 1.501 million New Zealanders left the country on short trips in the year to the end of May, the first time the 1.5 million mark had been surpassed.

Bernard Doyle, an economist at Goldman Sachs JBWere, said that the Sars outbreak in the previous comparable period had "flattered the figures".

But even after adjusting for this, growth so far this quarter had been impressive.

Doyle said he estimated that arrivals in April and May combined had grown 13 per cent, excluding the effect of Sars.