New statistics show importance of tourism to New Zealand’s recovery

Tourism Industry Aotearoa has highlighted how the latest statistics show the critical importance of the tourism industry to New Zealand’s economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Newly released Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) figures from Stats NZ show that total annual tourism spend had reached a record $41.9 billion in the year ended 31st March 2020, an increase of 2.4% or $1 billion on a year earlier.

International visitors’ spend was up by 2.2% or $371 million to $17.5 billion, even though international arrivals fell 5.6% compared with the previous year.

Domestic travellers’ spend was up by 2.7% or $629 million to $24.4 billion.

Commenting on the findings, Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA) Chief Executive, Chris Roberts stated “this official measurement of the value of the visitor economy reinforces its importance to New Zealand.

“While this period covered the initial stages of the pandemic, including the border closures in mid-March, we still saw total annual tourism expenditure grow to $41.9 billion - an average spend of $115 million per day.”

“The increase in expenditure was achieved despite the fall in international arrivals. This is pleasing as it showed value growing faster than volume, one of the industry’s key long term goals.”

225,384 people were directly employed in tourism - 8.0% of the total workforce and an increase of 2.5% from the previous year. A further 158,802 were indirectly employed in tourism (5.6 % of total employment), providing products and services consumed by visitors.

Tourism was New Zealand’s largest export earner, providing 20.1% of New Zealand’s total export receipts.

Visitors provided the New Zealand Government with $3.9 billion in GST revenue, with $1.8 billion of that coming from international visitors.

Roberts added “since March, the tourism picture has changed dramatically. However, this official record of the contribution of tourism to Aotearoa demonstrates the critical role the revitalisation of tourism will have in the wider economic recovery.”

The TSA is the official annual measurement of the New Zealand tourism industry. It includes measures of tourism spend by international and domestic visitors, the number of people employed through tourism, tourism’s share of export earnings and its contribution to New Zealand’s GDP.

Click here to read the latest Tourism Satellite Account.