US visitor numbers leap 38% in January

By Phil Boeyen, ShareChat Business News Editor

Thursday 7th March 2002

Recent rises in passenger numbers at Auckland International Airport (NZSE: AIA) have been backed up by new national visitor statistics.

Statistics New Zealand has reported that the country had 204,700 short-term overseas visitor arrivals in January, an increase of 4% over the same month last year.

This is in line with the recently released figures from AIA, which said the trend in international passengers for January and February 2002 had been positive with movements up 2.8% ahead of the same two months last year.

According to the Statistics NZ it is the first January with more than 200,000 short-term visitor arrivals.

"It was also the first month since September 2001 where there was an increase in the number of visitors, when compared with the same month of the previous year," it says.

The increased number included 7,000 more visitors from the United States, up 38% on last year. There were also increased visitors from the UK, Korea and Canada but fewer from Hong Kong, Australia, Japan and Germany.

In the year ended January there were 1.917 million visitor arrivals, up 99,000 or 5% on the previous January year.

The number of New Zealanders heading overseas for short-term trips fell by 7% in January compared with the same month last year, fueled by an 11% drop in the number of Kiwis heading to Australia.

Permanent and long-term arrivals exceeded departures during the month by 4,700 compared to a net outflow of 1,900 people in January last year.

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