KEY POINTS:
Tighter budgets have seen fewer New Zealand families fly to warmer destinations this winter and more choose to rent high-end baches closer to home.
Leslie Preston, of holiday home rental company www.bachcare.co.nz, has noticed a 40 per cent increase in activity over the ski season.
And advance bookings for the summer are already up 25 per cent on the same time last year.
Many of the summer bookings are by young families sharing accommodation, probably because money is tight, she says, and the busy winter is almost certainly linked to low levels of international travel.
This year, more families have booked holidays in Ohakune - the gateway to Mt Ruapehu in Tongariro National Park - or the South Island's skiing hubs, and many are those who usually go abroad in winter.
Preston has also noticed a shift in the type of renter, with more demand for bigger, modern holiday homes equipped with the latest gadgets.
"It seems weekend getaways are few and far between for time-pressed households, so when people do get a chance for a break, they do not want any surprises," she says.
Feedback via the bachcare.co.nz website indicates quality linen, unchipped crockery and up-to-date technology are important to renters.
To keep up with the trend towards higher-end rentals, holiday home owners are increasingly upgrading their facilities, installing Sky TV or a hot tub and giving more attention to small details, Preston says.
One Ohakune holiday home owner says renter feedback led him to upgrade furniture, install satellite TV and a DVD player, replenish the book supply and attach local knowledge to the noticeboard.
According to Statistics New Zealand, the number of short trips taken overseas this June was down 11 per cent on last year. Departures to Australia were down 14 per cent, fell by 10 per cent to the UK and to China were down 19 per cent.
Ministry of Tourism statistics show domestic travel numbers have also dropped over the past year, with trips of one night or more down 2.2 per cent and day trips down 12.5 per cent. These statistics run through to this March, and Trade Me's Mike O'Donnell says hotel and motel bookings through his company's website travelbug.co.nz have doubled in the past month.
Most customers have been middle-income, average-sized families looking for what O'Donnell describes as classic "kiwiana" accommodation mostly in ski areas.
The site has been running for 10 months and O'Donnell says it was prepared for activity to slow over winter because the tourism season hit its lowest ebb. "This has been a lot stronger than anticipated."
Jasons Travel's media chief executive Steven Joyce says it is too early to ascertain how household budget constraints had affected domestic travel, "but it would make sense that domestic tourism would do better than international tourism during economic tightening".
Joyce says over the past few years there has been a trend to fly to closer destinations for the weekend, and there have also been more people flying to Queenstown, Australia and the Pacific Islands.
There is also a suggestion the length of bookings is shortening - whether that is affected by business travellers or families cutting down on the number of nights they are away is difficult to tell, Joyce says.
Jasons has noticed an increased readership in its motel directory publication and that could be an indication of growth in the domestic market.
The company announced on Friday it is rolling out a commission-free online activity bookings service and is revamping its "what's on" guides for the central North Island in time for summer. "Our job is to secure results for our advertisers so it makes sense, when it looks like there's going to be a slowdown in international travel, to work extra hard for them."
Tourism Industry Association New Zealand chief executive Tim Cossar says while tourism is generally slow, people are still travelling but the tourism industry is struggling internationally. He says: "As discretionary incomes come under pressure, travel comes under pressure as well so that's something that's going to be influencing the domestic travel industry."
The association is looking to help domestic operators understand what motivates people to travel and identify how to intensify the market.
But Preston is confident the trend towards bach rentals will continue whether or not the economy tightens further. "It would seem the culture of the kiwi bach holiday is too strong to be cut from the household discretionary spend," she says.
