Northland leads the country in guest nights

Tourists out and about in Paihia. An increase of 10.5 per cent in visitor nights in Northland in February was more than that recorded nationally.

Northland is leading the country in guest growth as the number of nights visitors spend annually in the region is fast approaching the two million mark.

Statistics show that although most of the guests are first-timers from overseas, there are a lot of return visitors from Australia.

Figures from Statistics New Zealand show 222,000 guest nights in Northland in February, or an additional 21,000 nights compared with the same month last year.

That was an increase of 10.5 per cent, while the national growth rate for the same period was -0.4 per cent.

Except for Hawke's Bay and Gisborne, which recorded an increase in guest nights of 10.1 per cent during the same period, the growth in all other regions was less then 4 per cent.

Northland Inc's regional promotions and tourism general manager, Paul Davis, said the region's annual guest night growth as at February was tracking at more than double the national average.

The main commercial centres such as Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch and Otago experienced negative growth.

Mr Davis said the current commercial guest nights for Northland, generating $1.9 million a year, underpinned the strong performance of the region's accommodation sector.

International guest nights increased by 6.5 per cent, or from 5077 in February last year to 5969 for the same month this year.

Domestic nights grew 14 per cent, from 13,350 to 15,224.

"These results underlined Northland's appeal to traditional long-haul international markets such as the UK, USA and Europe which perform well for New Zealand. Northland is also attracting more repeat visitors from Australia," Mr Davis said.

He said the statistics also showed Auckland's continuing population growth was having a positive downstream effect on Northland's visitor industry, creating a larger Auckland domestic base to draw on.

There was no evidence, however, that the recent flattening of arrivals from China was having a negative effect on Northland as it was on some other destinations, he said.

"Northland has relatively lower exposure to Chinese visitors so this flattening from China
means the impact is being felt less here," Mr Davis said.