Travel data shows autumn tourism slowdown despite record migrant numbers

Kiwis returning from Indonesia, which boasts holiday hotspots such as Bali, were among those driving a big annual increase in New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals. Photo / Agunng Parameswara, Getty Images

Fewer tourists but more migrants seem to have arrived in May compared with a month earlier.

New data from Stats NZ today showed 160,300 arrivals in May, down from slightly more than 220,000 in April.

But the May 2023 numbers were dramatically higher than a year earlier, when the country was still reeling from the rampant Omicron stage of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the year to May 31, all overseas visitor arrivals were 2.45 million, up 2.19 million from the May 2022 year.

Arrivals from Australia, the US, India, China, and South Korea were the main drivers of the year-on-year increase.

Of all 160,300 overseas visitor arrivals in May 2023, almost half were from Australia.

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 203,600 in the May year, up 112,700 from one year earlier.

Kiwis travelling back from Australia, the US, China, Fiji, Samoa, Indonesia and Japan made up most of those arrivals.

May was quieter than April this year for total border crossings.

Some 792,900 border crossings were logged in May 2023, with 379,400 arrivals and 413,500 departures.

In April 2023 there were 926,200 border crossings, Stats NZ said.

May 2023′s total border crossings were 81 per cent of the 983,600 registered in May 2019, before the pandemic.

Arrival numbers alone in May this year were less substantial than the pre-Covid number of 219,300 in May 2019.

Tourism was largely off-limits for three years from early 2020.

The new travel data from Stats NZ was released at the same time the agency’s migration data showed 154,700 non-New Zealand citizen migrant arrivals in the May 2023 year.

That number eclipsed the 145,000 arrivals recorded in the April 2023 year.