Rain keeps visitors down 8.6%

Hawke's Bay guest nights in January dropped 8.6 per cent, compared to the same time last year.

That equates to 21,630 less visitor nights in the region in January, according to Statistics New Zealand's Commercial Accommodation Monitor report.

That decline was felt most in Napier, down by 11.2 per cent (9149 guest nights), while Hastings was down by 4.45 per cent (2747 guest nights).

Holiday parks were severely affected by wet weather, recording 24.9 per cent fewer guest nights (16,592) than last year.

The hotel sector in the Bay enjoyed an increase of more than 5200 guest nights, a 34 per cent increase.

The general manager of Napier's Crown Hotel in Ahuriri, Michele Cole, said walk-in customers and the corporate market returned to business earlier in January due to poor weather.

The Napier i-SITE recorded 10,000 more visitors through its doors in January compared to last year. Most were from cruise ships, which have delivered more than 100,000 visitors to Hawke's Bay so far this season.

Wayne Bradshaw, the owner of the Wine Country Lodge in Havelock North, said while the Rugby World Cup had given limited relief to some accommodation providers last year, an underlying downward trend was clearly evident, both regionally and nationally.

"Now that Hawke's Bay Tourism is firmly established, it is hoped that their strategies, forward planning and promotions will address those declines which significantly impact the GDP of our region," he said.

General manager of Hawke's Bay Tourism, Annie Dundas, said the organisation had been tracking well in terms of visitor arrivals with the last four months, showing a steady increase year on year, but bad weather in January caused visitor numbers to fall.

"Clearly, we want visitors staying in Hawke's Bay but the weather has really changed people's travel plans across the country and only fuels last minute travel plans, which doesn't help an accommodation sector manage its inventory," she said.

Nationally, there was a 4.2 per cent decline in guest nights in commercial accommodation in January.

Neighbouring regions shared Hawke's Bay's decline. Bay of Plenty fell 11.3 per cent, Taupo 5.3 per cent and Coromandel 7.8 per cent.