KEY POINTS:
Latest passenger numbers for Auckland International Airport show a positive trend emerging for the tourism sector, its chief financial officer says.
Robert Sinclair said yesterday international visitor arrivals for October were up 3 per cent on a year earlier with solid growth across all major inbound markets including Australia, Korea, the United Kingdom, China and the United States.
He said the October figures followed a positive September month, providing more evidence of the early stages of a growth trend.
Once again, China had the most growth, up 27 per cent on October last year and now up 22 per cent for the year to date.
That growth comes off a relatively low base of about 7700 passengers compared with arrivals from traditional tourism markets such as Australia.
But with more than 42,000 arrivals, Australian visitor numbers were also up - 9.7 per cent compared with the same month last year.
The airport expects to see more growth from the Chinese market after Air New Zealand began flying to Shanghai on October 28.
Chinese visitors have now surpassed the Japanese, whose numbers continue to fall. Just 5723 visited from Japan in October, down 30 per cent on the same month last year and 20 per cent for the year to date.
The Korean market continued a positive trend, benefiting from an increased Tourism NZ presence there.
October also saw 7.2 per cent more passengers from the US and 3.7 per cent more from the UK.
Sinclair said while it was not dramatically lower, the slight downward shift in value of the dollar was probably having some positive impact.
The growth over the past two months was extremely good news going into the tourism high season.
In October, the airport said it expected profits to remain flat this year but promised improved earnings thanks to the growth of new markets such as India..
Its reported revenue was up 8.3 per cent, at $77.1 million, for the three months to September although net profit was down slightly, from $24.9 million last year to $24.2 million, mostly because of lower passenger numbers and higher depreciation and interest costs
Shares in Auckland International Airport closed unchanged yesterday at $2.16.
In the long term, the growth in passenger numbers is expected to continue its upward trend.
This week, plane manufacturer Airbus forecast overall world passenger traffic growth of 4.8 per cent a year from 2006-2025.
