New Zealand no longer flavour of the month with Chinese tourists

Tuesday, 12 November 2019

The China New Zealand Year of Tourism is drawing to a close but it has not boosted visitor numbers from the People’s Republic.

Aussie visitors are helping make up for the continued slide in many Asian markets, particularly China.

Statistics NZ said if all cruise ship passengers were included, total visitor arrivals had surpassed 4 million for the year to the end of September, up 94,300.

Australian visitors topped 1.5 million for the period and while US tourists were up 28,900, visitors from China, our second largest market, dropped almost 40,000.

That was despite promotional activities around the China New Zealand Year of Tourism which drew to a close at the weekend with a ceremony in Guangzhou attended by Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis.

**READ MORE:

The China New Zealand year of tourism wrapped up at the weekend with Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis and China's Minister of Culture and Tourism Luo Shugang officiating at a closing ceremony in Guangzhou. Despite more than 400,000 visitor arrivals from China last year, numbers have steadily dropped over the past 12 months.

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A calendar of more than 40 events went ahead after a the year got off to a messy start when Chinese officials postponed the opening ceremony at short notice, allegedly because of scheduling problems.

New Zealand Chinese Travel and Tourism Association chair Simon Cheung said the timing of the year of tourism was unfortunate because of the combination of the Christchurch terror attack and nervousness about the China economy.

But he is confident the downward trend can be arrested and said feedback from members indicated bookings from now through until Chinese New Year in late January were looking more promising.

'I think we are past the worst point. November is crazy, cheaper airfares end in mid November, so a lot of people want to come before that.'

Tourism New Zealand director commercial Rene de Monchy said the China US Trade war had affected consumer confidence and Chinese holiday makers were delaying long haul travel or choosing other cheaper destinations such as Europe.

In September the number of Chinese coming to New Zealand to holiday fell 18 per cent compared with the same period last year and some Rotorua businesses have been hit by the drop in Chinese tour groups.

However, outbound travel from China was still growing and he said TNZ was fine tuning its advertising to catch the 'eye balls' of those planning holidays.

Kiwi operators heavily dependent on the Chinese market will be hoping that works, according the Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Chris Robert, who said businesses needed to work out the best customers to target.

'They've had the luxury over the past four or five years that every market segment was growing, so that was good news across the board, now it is a lot more uneven.

'One area where we're hearing some parts of the industry are struggling is in Rotorua where there's obviously been a drop off in the number of Chinese tour groups.

'Those businesses used to having those Chinese tour buses through are certainly having some pain, and a reasonably significant reduction in the numbers they were getting - 10 per cent would not be uncommon for businesses to be down.'

The number of overseas visitors coming here to holiday or to visit friends and family has been heading south for months, but growth in international students and business travellers helped make up for that.

Whether total international visitor numbers will actually go into the red remains to be seen.

De Monchy said the medium to long term outlook was still quite positive, but the slow down in the holiday sector over the past six to nine months was a concern and reflected the highly competitive nature of the global tourism market.

'It's becoming increasingly challenging to get people to consider New Zealand because of that environment; we're not the only destination in town.'

Roberts said the summer outlook was reasonably optimistic.

'I would expect it to definitely be a record for visitor spend because we know that with the New Zealand dollar being weaker than it was a year ago, the visitor spend will be up.

'It's whether the strength we're seeing from Australia and North America can continue to make up for the weakness out of China.'