Events keep hotels full of guests

BY JAMES WEIR

Wellington hotels were humming along to rock band AC/DC in January with guest numbers up 10 per cent in the month.

Other recent events such as the rugby Sevens and the International Arts Festival are keeping up the beat for the tourism trade.

Nationally, hotel, motel and holiday park numbers in January were up 4 per cent on the same month last year, boosted especially by international travellers.

In a bumper month, the sector handled a record 4.4 million guest nights in the month. January is traditionally the peak month for guest nights. Eleven of the 12 regions recorded more guest nights in January than a year earlier, Statistics NZ said. Wellington numbers were up 10 per cent or 23,000.

Nationally in January international guest nights were 8 per cent higher and domestic guest nights were 2 per cent higher than in January 2009.

Wellington hotel occupancy rates were up 6 per cent on the same month last year, at 56 per cent according to Statistics NZ figures out yesterday.

November had been a flat month for Wellington tourism, but both December and January had been much better, boosted by international visitors, Positively Wellington Tourism chief David Perks said.

The AC/DC Australian rock band concert helped lift hotel occupancy in January. "That concert was really important for January," he said.

February was also "extremely good" for hotels, with the NZI Sevens rugby competition, a pinot noir wine conference, Phoenix football games and the start of the International Arts Festival.

Arts festivals raise monthly hotel occupancy by about 8 percentage points compared with non-festival years.

Some hotels in February were 97 per cent full at peak, which was "just remarkable", Mr Perks said.

More foreign tourists were now travelling by themselves rather than in coach tours and that suited Wellington as a destination with attractions such as Te Papa museum, where past marketing efforts were starting to pay off, he said.

Almost half of Wellington's international visitors come from Australia and the tourism group is about to start a big campaign in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne. "We look for that to grow even more significantly in the next 12 months."

With the exchange rate close to a decade low at A76.38c yesterday, the campaign was "perfect timing" to offer a good value deal to Australians, he said.

Wellington hotels came through a tough 2009, including the recession in New Zealand and the global financial crisis, according to the Hotel Council.

Council chairwoman Jennie Langley said all hotels were challenged by lower occupancy rates because of fewer foreign tourists during the year, many more late bookings than usual and a swine flu outbreak which caused some tour groups to cancel trips.

But overall, Wellington hotels still maintained the second highest occupancy rate in New Zealand at 69.4 per cent on average for the year, just behind Auckland.

Wellington achieved the highest average room rate of all regions at almost $143 a night, and although that was down 3 per cent on the previous year, the discounting was not as bad as the national average of a reduction of 5.7 per cent.

Domestic and Australian tourists helped compensate the New Zealand sector for the dropoff in international tourism.

The accommodation survey records guests staying in hotels, motels, backpackers, and holiday parks in New Zealand each month.

Hotel guest nights were up 80,000 or 8 per cent in January from a year earlier, holiday parks rose 51,000 or 3 per cent, motels gained 30,000 or 3 per cent, and backpackers were up 26,000 or 5 per cent.

- © Fairfax NZ News