Summer travellers are sticking close to home

By SCOTT MacLEOD

Terror attacks have done little to stop New Zealanders from flying this summer - but they appear to be staying closer to home than before.

And though the number of tourists coming here is expected to drop by 5 per cent this summer, visitor numbers from some Asian countries are growing strongly and could be greater if the airline seats were available.

One big travel firm said New Zealanders were buying more tickets on domestic and "short-haul" international flights, but fewer on long-haul flights.

Flight Centre sales and marketing manager Graeme Moore said there had been a 15 per cent surge in bookings on domestic and short-haul flights with his firm for the next two months.

Long-haul bookings had dipped by an unspecified amount. But New Zealanders were still asking for details of overseas trips, suggesting they would start booking again soon.

"The biggest problem we have is that airlines have reduced capacity far below demand," Mr Moore said. "You can't stop Kiwis from travelling - it's in their blood."

The president of the Inbound Tour Operators Council, Don Gunn, agreed there was a lack of airline seats for the Asian markets, but said that was always the case at this time of year.

He said there was a bottleneck in Singapore, and some tour groups had been turned away from New Zealand because they were unable to find seats.

Mr Gunn said figures from Asia were encouraging for the NZ tourism industry, and bookings from the US had gone from being 8 per cent down in November to 5 per cent down in December/January.

Tourism NZ figures for October - the latest available - showed many Japanese and Americans were too scared to travel here, but confirmed there was a boom in the number of people visiting from some Asian countries.

Visits from the United States and Japan in October dropped from the same month last year by 19.5 per cent - a loss of 5500 people.

However, the number of visitors from Korea jumped 33.5 per cent and from China 61.5 per cent - a gain of 2200 people.

Overall, 4600 fewer people visited New Zealand in October compared with a year earlier, a 3.1 per cent drop.

Tourism NZ acting chief Tim Hunter predicted that the overall drop to the end of February would be 5 per cent.

Analysts said after September 11 that New Zealand would lose up to 10 per cent of its visitors. Mr Gunn said the situation was "looking better, quite frankly".

Tourism NZ is spending $500,000 to lure Australians here in a bid to make up the shortfall and $2 million in Japan to make New Zealand look "safe".