Australia

Market Overview

Australia is New Zealand's largest inbound tourism market, accounting for around half of all visitors. There were 1,146,273 million Australian visitor arrivals to New Zealand in the year ended November 2011. This was up 2.8 percent from the year ended November 2010 (source: Ministry of Economic Development).

Australian holiday arrivals to New Zealand rose 1.3 per cent for the same period (year end November 2011), with more than 400,000 expatriate New Zealanders living in Australia. There is also a strong base of Visiting Friends and Relatives (VFR) travel.

The average visitor spend per person is $1,598.00 which represents a total of $1.655 billion per annum in total expenditure from the Australia market.

Key Statistics

International Visitor Arrivals December 2011

Year End Total 1,156,426 3.3%
Year End (Holiday) 456,425 1.0%
Month End Total 161,504 6.7%
Month End (Holiday) 60,880 3.7%
Total Stay Days* 12,276,778
Total Stay Days (Holiday)* 5,123,661
Average Length of Stay* 10.6 days
Average Length of Stay (Holiday)* 11.2 days

International Visitor Survey - YE December 2011

Average Expenditure per Visit NZD1,567
Total Expenditure per Annum NZD1.669b

Market Insights

Official New Zealand Government forecasts are for Australian visitor arrivals to reach 1.24 million in 2012 (source: New Zealand Tourism Forecasts 2010-2016). One of the drivers of expected growth...

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Want to know more?

For more information including tourism research and data, policy, and publications please see the Ministry of Economic Development.