Rebounding New Zealand tourism is a rare bright spot for the economy, as Australians Eunice and John Rowley, who are taking their first holiday in New Zealand, pose for a photo in Wellington.
WELLINGTON Reuters - When cruises started taking bookings at the end of the COVID 19 pandemic, Australians Eunice and John Rowley quickly made plans for their first ever visit to New Zealand.
Eunice, who is traveling with her husband on the Grand Princess around New Zealand, was told on the 9 o clock news bulletin that they were opening up cruises and by the afternoon we had two cruises booked.
We had never been to New Zealand, so we thought this was our opportunity. New Zealand's international tourist sector disappeared overnight when it became one of the first to seal its borders at the beginning of the COVID outbreak in early 2020.
Foreign tourists have been making their way back and are responsible for one of the main bright spots for an economy struggling to cope with headwinds as a possible recession looms, as foreign tourists have been making their way back since borders were fully reopened in August.
In January, visitor numbers were already back to two-thirds of what they were before the epidemic began, according to the latest data released by Statistics New Zealand.
Stephen England-Hall, chief executive RealNZ, said it has been pretty busy across our portfolio, as well as a number of tourist activities in New Zealand's South Island, such as cruises and jet-boat rides.
He said that demand over the New Zealand summer had been much higher than anticipated, with independent travellers in particular fuelling the recovery.
He said arrivals at some airports were actually higher than in 2019 but the good figures were offset by fewer tourists visiting by car, camper van and bus.
Tourism was New Zealand's largest source of foreign exchange before the epidemic, and was responsible for about 5.5% of gross domestic product GDP. The reviving sector is expected to have supported growth in the quarter to December. The data is out on Thursday and is expected to show a 0.2% contraction in the fourth quarter.
Some tourism-related industries have performed better than before the pandemic.
According to an analysis of Statistics NZ GDP data for September 2022, food and accommodation is up 10.3% on pre-pandemic levels, according to the Wellington-based economics consultancy Infometrics.
Inflation in New Zealand is close to a three-decade high, but Brad Olsen, the principal economist at Infometrics, said it was hard to understand why the figure was up so much.
Olsen said that solid tourism activity would be partially offset by weaker construction, retail, and manufacturing activity.
While tourist arrivals from Australia and the United States were returning to normal levels, the numbers for several markets, including China, remain well below pre-pandemic numbers.
In January China allowed group tours to 20 countries as it threw off its strict COVID policy, with New Zealand on this list along with Thailand and Russia.
The recovery varies from market to market based on airline connectivity and the late removal of COVID restrictions last year compared to other countries lifting travel restrictions earlier in the year, said Lynda Keene, head of Tourism Export Council New Zealand.
She said that there are higher numbers of Chinese visitors who are expected to show up in the February and March data.
She said that it's encouraging to see that we're moving in an upward direction.