KEY POINTS:
New Zealanders left the country on a record number of short term trips last month, figures published today by Statistics New Zealand (SNZ) show.
The 208,300 short trip departures in June was up 20,500, or 11 per cent, on the number in June last year, SNZ said.
The number of departures was a record for any month.
Half the increase was in trips to Australia, with an increase of 10,000, or 12 per cent, and there were also more trips to Britain, the Cook Islands, Samoa and Canada.
The America's Cup yachting regatta in Valencia saw trips to Spain increase, from 600 in June 2006 to 1200 last month, SNZ said.
The political situation in Fiji continued to affect departures to that country, which were down 1200, or 10 per cent.
In the year to June, New Zealand residents left on 1.92 million trips, an increase of 36,600, or 2 per cent, on the previous year.
Visitor arrivals for June were up 5600, or 4 per cent, to 145,500, on the same month in 2006.
For the year ended June, 2.46 million visitors arrived in this country, an increase of 80,200, or 3 per cent, on the previous year.
Visitors from Australia were up 39,000, or 4 per cent, those from China were up 19,600 or 20 per cent, while numbers from Japan were down 17,800, or 12 per cent, SNZ said.
Seasonally adjusted, permanent and long term (PLT) arrivals exceeded departures by 600 in June, up on 400 in May, but down on levels above 1000 between June and December last year.
In actual figures, PLT departures exceeded arrivals by 400 in June, compared with an excess of 200 arrivals in June 2006.
The change in direction of the net flow was mainly due to 600 more New Zealand citizen departures to Australia, SNZ said.
For the year to the end of June PLT arrivals exceeded departures by 10,100, down from 10,700 in the June 2006 year.
Annual net PLT migration had reached 14,800 in the year ended November 2006, but had since eased, SNZ said.
- NZPA
