By GREG ANSLEY
CANBERRA - Waning New Zealand enthusiasm for transtasman holidays will contribute significantly to a savage pruning of expected growth in Australia's tourism this year, says the nation's Tourism Forecasting Council.
The council has confirmed statistics released last week indicating a fall in transtasman travel.
New Zealand is a key
market for the Australian tourism industry. It is expected to underpin much of its growth over the next decade.
In the March quarter, New Zealand was Australia's third-largest source of overseas visitors, behind Japan and Britain.
It provided 13 per cent of an estimated 1.3 million foreign tourists.
With the exception of May, short-term New Zealand visits between April and December last year ran at more than 70,000 a month, peaking at 82,400 in July.
In the first three months of this year, numbers slipped to 54,700 (January), 50,700 (February) and 59,300 (March).
But the quarter's total was still 6.6 per cent above the previous March quarter's.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics said transtasman visits were trending downwards, and the council said this week that growth was likely to fall from last year's 12.7 per cent surge. It predicted that fewer New Zealanders would visit Australia this year, although its forecasts projected a return next year to steady growth through to 2010.
But the slide in transtasman travel this year will add to further expected declines in the other major markets of Japan, Britain and the United States, pulling forecast growth back from the 8 per cent predicted at the beginning of the year to 4.5 per cent.
Australian Tourist Commission managing director Ken Boundy said softer growth was caused by the slowing world economy, especially in the US and Japan, affecting consumer confidence and discouraging long-haul international travel.
Similar economic cooling and political instability in Asian countries would also affect tourism.
The latest forecast has dampened the glow from last year's Olympic-led surge, which saw international arrivals break the 5 million mark in the 12 months to last January.
But Mr Boundy said that mid- to long-term prospects remained strong.
A record 5.2 million international visitors and about $A17 billion in export earnings were expected this year, even with the slowdown.
Visitor arrivals for June showed an increase of 5.1 per cent over June last year, totalling 365,700. Europe showed growth of 20.5 per cent.
