US traffic to Immigration NZ site soars

Queenstown with the Remarkables in the backround. Photo / 123rf

Some Americans haven't taken the election result very well and are looking to greener pastures on the other side of the world. Immigration New Zealand's website has been inundated with visits from US browsers in the last 24 hours increase their traffic 24-fold.

56,300 visits were recorded in just 24 hours of the election INZ marketing manager Greg Forsythe told Bloomberg.

"INZ typically receives about 3,000 registrations each month via the New Zealand Now website from US nationals interested in studying, working or investing," Forsythe said in an e-mail to Bloomberg.

"In the past 24 hours, 7,287 registrations have been received from American citizens - more than twice the number of a typical month's registrations."

Trade Me is registering huge interest from the US too, with thousands of Americans browsing property and jobs in our (relatively) peaceful and stable island nation.

Logan Mudge, external communications advisor for Trade Me, said people in the US are considering their options with migrating.

"In property we've seen over 90,000 searches from US based people in the last 9 days," he said.

"Yesterday's jobs searches from the US doubled on our normal traffic from there and we expect to see bigger numbers when today's data comes through. We also saw increased traffic during October as the campaign ebbed and flowed."