The number of tourists coming into the country rose by close to one million over the past year but is still running at 17 per cent down on pre-pandemic levels.
The tourism sector, once the
country’s biggest export earner, has been boosted in the past year by a surge in the number of arrivals from China.
In the year to March, there were 3.18 million visitor arrivals, up by 984,000 on the corresponding period in 2023 but still well short of the 3.87 million who came to Aotearoa in the year to March 2019.
The pandemic hit in early 2020, borders shut, and many in the international tourism sector switched to catering to domestic tourists.
While the number of overseas tourists has been about 80 per cent of pre-pandemic levels for most of the past summer, Kiwibank is forecasting a further recovery, especially if the China market continues its strong recovery.
The tourism-value-over-volume/62G6UQFX2NHMJIIZC2OKTFQV5Q/” target=”_blank”>figures released today by Stats NZ show arrivals from China were up 144 per cent in the past 12…
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