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Tourism sector sees more $$$ symbols

With Tourism New Zealand’s campaigns to China, Japan, Australia, the UK, USA and Germany now firmly unleashed, comes good news for New Zealand’s tourism market, with fresh figures from the Tourism Satellite Account: 2010 showing spending by international tourists in New Zealand increased 1.6 percent ($149 million) in the year ended March 2010. That’s a healthier outcomes when compared with the same period last year, which saw a 0.7 decrease in spending.

So who are the biggest spenders? National accounts manager Rachael Milicich puts it largely down to our trans-Tasman cousins.

“The significant rise in visitor numbers from the Oceania region (predominantly Australia) has been the catalyst for a return to growth in international expenditure.”

Not a big surprise, when you consider recent statistics show Australians made up 1,121,760 of international visitor arrivals for the full year to September 2010—an increase of 7.3 percent.

The Satellite Account also shows domestic expenditure rose to $12.9 billion, a 2.5 percent increase on the previous year, amounting to a total spending increase—by both domestic and international tourists— of 2.1 percent ($466 million) to $22.4 billion in the year ended March 2010.

“These record figures are very encouraging for the tourism sector and shows the industry has weathered the economic downturn well,’’ says Associate Tourism Minister Jonathan Coleman.

And if you just can’t get enough statistics, here’s more from this year’s Tourism Satellite Account

  • Domestic tourism expenditure was $12.9 billion, an increase of 2.5 percent from the previous year. This includes expenditure by New Zealanders abroad on New Zealand-produced goods and services.
  • International tourism contributed $9.5 billion (or 18.2 percent) to New Zealand’s total exports of goods and services.
  • Tourism generated a direct contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) of $6.5 billion, or 3.8 percent of GDP.
  • The indirect value added of industries supporting tourism generated an additional $8.6 billion to tourism.
  • The tourism industry directly employed 92,900 full-time equivalent employees (or 4.9 percent of total employment in New Zealand), a decrease of 1.6 percent from the previous year.
  • Tourists generated $1.7 billion in goods and services tax (GST) revenue.

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