Tourism up despite fewer UK visitors

Photo / Kenny Rodger

The traditional British tourist market is in distress but New Zealand is positioned well to attract more visitors from the Asia-Pacific region, says Tourism Industry Association chief executive Tim Cossar.

The latest data on short-term overseas arrivals show total visitor numbers are up 3.7 per cent for the year ended June at 2.5 million - the first time this barrier has been broken.

Australian visitors were up 11.1 per cent but the United Kingdom and United States were down 5.1 per cent and 1.4 per cent respectively.

The UK was a traditional market that was really struggling, Cossar said.

"Overall if you look at just the high level numbers it's a market in distress," he said.

"It's being driven out of the [UK] economy - the fact that there's not the discretionary income and unemployment's higher."

There was quite a bit of optimism for the US market, Cossar said.

Western Europe and America had traditionally been seen as higher spending markets.

"But I think there's a school of thought there that the world markets are in dramatic change and that those traditional patterns may well be turning in the next few years," Cossar said.

"We haven't see that turn necessarily but everyone's projecting Asia Pacific being the hot spot and New Zealand in real terms is probably positioned quite well to grow those markets."

Tourism New Zealand said growth for the month was led by a strong start to the winter ski season out of Australia and recovery in key Asian markets following last year's swine flu pandemic.

The total number of short-term visitors for June was up 7.9 per cent to 145,825. Tourism New Zealand chief executive Kevin Bowler said the return to growth, particularly among the Asian markets, added to his confidence that New Zealand was getting back on track with international arrivals.

"China, Japan and Korea are warming up and the outlook is slightly brighter, but we have yet to turn the corner to get back to the growth we were seeing a year ago across Asia and there remains some underlying weakness in the western markets."

Tourism New Zealand said political and economic uncertainty, more expensive airfares, shortages of airline seats and the stay-at-home effect of the Fifa World Cup were among the factors influencing declines in arrivals from the US, UK and Germany.

The recovery from the global financial crisis had been a little bit slower and more bumpy that had been hoped for, Bowler said.