Tourism lifts with airline capacity

Most tourist expenditure occurs in the gateway cities Auckland and Christchurch. Photo / Chris Gorman

Tourism has returned to strong international growth for the first time since the global financial crisis, boosted by an increase in airline capacity.

Figures show tourism generates $65 million a day across New Zealand - $37 million in domestic expenditure and $28 million in international spending.

The tourism industry was now in a strong position to take advantage of growth opportunities, according to a report released by the Tourism Industry Association and Lincoln University.

State of the Tourism Industry 2014 is the latest in an annual series produced by Lincoln University and TIA, with data support from Statistics New Zealand and Tourism New Zealand.

Lincoln University tourism expert David Simmons said it was encouraging that tourism employment has grown after four years of either flat or falling job numbers.

"Tourism employment is arguably the most important social benefit from tourism sector activities, often providing jobs in areas where there are few other opportunities," Simmons said.

This is reflected in regional tourism expenditure. While most expenditure occurs in the gateway cities Auckland and Christchurch, the impact of expenditure is more marked in regions such as the West Coast, Otago, Tasman/Nelson, Northland and Marlborough, he said.

The report finds that Australians, who make up New Zealand's biggest source of visitors, are spending less time here, with the median stay falling from 11 to nine days for holiday visitors since 2004 but Chinese are staying for longer - up from four days to five days since 2013.

"Australians now consider New Zealand a domestic destination, which they may visit multiple times rather than treating it as a once-in-a-lifetime destination to visit," Simmons said.

The report shows airline seat capacity had increased by 6.3 per cent from 2013 to reach 7.8 million seats. Strong growth off a low base was recorded for South America (up 59.2 per cent to 145,000 seats) and Australia (increasing by 7.7 per cent to 4.8 million seats).

The Asia region increased 2.3 per cent to 1.4 million seats and North America increased 2.1 per cent to 701,000 seats.

The association's chief executive, Chris Roberts, said announcements of planned new air links with China would boost these numbers further.

Roberts said: "The data shows that the tourism industry is making a good start on reaching its aspirational Tourism 2025 goal of almost doubling total tourism revenue to $41 billion by 2025."