Key facts
In January 2019 compared with January 2018, overseas visitor arrivals were up 20,100 to 399,300. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:
The number of New Zealand residents returning from an overseas trip in January 2019 was up 4,100 from January 2018, to 320,900. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:
Visitor numbers across all age groups increased in January 2019 when compared with January 2018. The largest increases were:
- under 15s (up 5,400)
- 35-44-year olds (up, 4,400)
- 25-34-year olds (up, 3,300).
For the month of January 2019, the:
- median length of stay (half stayed less than this duration, half stayed more) for visitor arrivals was 10.5 days
- median length of absence (half stayed less than this duration, half stayed more) for New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals was 14.1 days.
The most popular day for travel in January was the 22nd when there were 22,300 arrivals and 19,600 departures.
In the January 2019 year compared with the January 2018 year:
- visitor arrivals were 3.88 million up 151,500
- New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 3.02 million up 145,800.
Data on unique travellers in development
Stats NZ is now able to identify international travellers from their trips and create a unique travel history. This means we can measure the number of people who travel each month, and how many times they visit or leave New Zealand in a year.
Of the 709,100 unique short-term travellers who arrived in January 2019, 394,100 were overseas visitors and 315,000 were New Zealand-resident travellers. These unique passengers accounted for 399,300 visitor arrivals and 320,900 resident arrivals.
Most people only took one trip in January 2019, but 10,600 travellers arrived multiple times during January. Of these, 5,600 were New Zealand-resident travellers who took 11,600 trips, while the other 5,000 overseas visitors took 10,300 trips.
Currently there are no data series on unique travellers in Infoshare but this could be available in the future.
Update on 'not stated' category
From November 2018, statistics on country of residence and travel purpose of overseas visitors contain actual counts rather than counts derived from a sample. They include travellers who put incorrect or incomplete data on their arrival cards - these are reported in the 'not stated' category.