Australians give New Zealand tourism a lift

Australian visitors continued to give the tourist industry a boost, with short-term overseas visitor arrivals reaching an October record last month of 187,400.

That was an increase of 13,400 or 8 percent from a year earlier, as the number of Australians visiting lifted 15,900 or 22 percent to 87,700, Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) said today.

It is the second consecutive record month for short-term visitor arrivals, which also reached a high for a September month, again boosted by visitors from Australia.

The October figures were also helped by Chinese visitors, with numbers up for a second consecutive month, lifting by 1100 or 17 percent from October 2008 to 7600.

Rises in Chinese visitors in the past two months followed falls between April and August, SNZ said.

Despite the latest increase, arrivals from China were still 1900 lower than in October 2007.

In contrast to the increase in Chinese visitors, numbers from Korea were down 1900 or 33 percent in October from a year earlier.

Falls of at least 1200 visitors from Korea have been recorded each month since September 2008, SNZ said.

Visitor arrivals from Britain were down 1300 or 7 percent last month from a year earlier, South African visitors were down 700 or 40 percent, and those from India fell 600 or 10 percent.

The 2.44 million visitors who arrived during the year to October were 24,400 or 1 percent fewer than a year earlier.

Visitor numbers from Australia during the year rose 93,600 or 10 percent to 1.06m, while the fall in numbers of Koreans was 32,500 or 38 percent, along with 31,900 or 29 percent fewer Japanese, and 30,500 or 11 percent fewer Britons.

New Zealand residents left on 176,500 short-term trips in October, up 600 or less than 1 percent from a year earlier.

- NZPA