February visitor tally tops 200,000

By Phil Boeyen, ShareChat Business News Editor

Thursday 21st March 2002

More people are visiting New Zealand but fewer New Zealanders are taking overseas trips according to latest figures.

Statistics New Zealand reports there were 212,200 short-term overseas visitor arrivals in New Zealand last month, 6% higher than in February last year.

It was the first February month with more than 200,000 short-term visitor arrivals. Visitor numbers increased from a number of countries including China, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and Korea however the number of visitors from Germany fell by 1,600 compared with last February.

On an annual basis New Zealand had 1.929 million visitor arrival in the year ended February 2002, a 6% increase on the previous year. The major contributing countries were Australia, Korea, China and the UK.

Seasonally adjusted visitor arrivals fell by 5% between January and February after figures rebounded by 6% between December 2001 and January 2002.

Statistics NZ says 8% fewer New Zealanders went on an overseas trip in February compared with the same month last year. Departures to Australia accounted for the majority of the drop, falling by 4,300 or 11%.

New Zealand continues to record net migration with permanent and long-term arrivals exceeding departures by 4,200 last month. That compares with a net outflow of 1,500 in February 2001.

"This change was the result of 1,900 more arrivals and 3,800 fewer departures, " Statistics NZ says.

Although the number of New Zealanders returning home to live rose by 3,000 to 24,100 in the year ended February the figure was still outweighed by the 49,300 New Zealanders who left the country on a permanent or long-term basis.

However the number of non-NZ citizens arriving to live permanently or long-term rose by nearly a third to 62,200 resulting in a net inflow of 47,200 non-New Zealand citizens.

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