Australian conference business up 38 per cent

Fitness trainers from all over the world take part in a Les Mills global convention at SkyCity. Photo / Martin Sykes

The number of Australians travelling to New Zealand for business events will not be adversely affected by this year's Christchurch earthquake, says the head of an industry group.

Conventions & Incentives New Zealand (CINZ) says latest figures show that in the 12 months to February 2011 almost 39,000 Australians travelled to this country for conferences, conventions or incentive events - a 38 per cent increase on the prior year.

CINZ chief executive Alan Trotter said about 95 per cent of the conferences that had been booked in Christchurch before the February 22 quake had been successfully relocated to other centres such as Auckland, Rotorua and Queenstown.

"We've spent a lot of time and effort in persuading [event organisers] to keep the business in the country."

Trotter added that some Christchurch venues, such as those near the International Airport, had been unaffected by the disaster.

The total number of overseas visitors arriving in New Zealand for business tourism events in the year to February was up 27 per cent to 60,069, CINZ said. Trotter said this country was proving popular for Australian corporates because of its close proximity and a favourable exchange rate.

"The Australian dollar is worth nearly 30 per cent more than the New Zealand dollar at the moment so they can get much more bang for their buck here than they can if they choose to conference at home," he said.

Trotter said the same kind of growth in Australian arrivals for business events seen last year would take place in 2011.

Visitors from across the Tasman were not particularly risk averse and would not be put off by the Christchurch quake, he said.

Total visitor arrivals fell 11 per cent to 215,600 in March, according to Statistics New Zealand figures released last week, resulting in part from the disasters in Japan and Christchurch.

Australian visitor arrivals were down 11,900 on the same month in 2010, with 3700 fewer from Japan and 6800 less from Britain.

Goldman Sachs economist Philip Borkin said April and May would see further weakness in arrivals, with the situation likely to improve in the third quarter of 2011.