Tourism tipped to bounce back

By SIMON HENDERY

A survey of inbound tourism predicts that visitor numbers for the peak November-to-March season will be unchanged from last year, and says the industry could rebound next summer.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia's strategist for New Zealand, Rodney Dickens, and economist Nicola Chadwick analysed feedback to Tourism New Zealand from 89 airlines and travel wholesalers in 13 countries.

They concluded that tourism growth would slightly improve during the December quarter.

"Despite the fact that visitor arrivals are likely to be below what was expected before the September 11 attacks, when viewed in this context they do not look like the disaster that seems to be generally assumed," they said.

The Tourism Action Group convened after the United States terror attacks has warned operators to expect a 10 per cent drop in visitor numbers in the last three months of the year.

The industry's biggest concern is a slump in forward bookings into next year.

The Commonwealth Bank researchers carried out a survey of local hotel, travel agency, cruise ship and rental car firm managers.

Feedback from those surveyed on the expected effect on their businesses "was a lot less negative than what the consensus expectation appears to be", they said.

Most believed it was difficult to assess the effect of the attacks on business for the first quarter of next year.

"Implications for the longer-term outlook for New Zealand tourism are almost entirely dependent on whether there are further terrorist attacks, and the outcome of the war on terrorism," says the Commonwealth Bank report.

"An issue to consider is that travel wholesalers in the United States are giving clients cancelling trips now a year in which to use their tickets.

"It gives us hope that, despite the fact we are likely to see a drop in visitor arrivals over the summer relative to what we were expecting before September 11, we may well see these visitors coming through later next year."