Domestic travel expenditure holding up

The Ministry of Economic Development’s latest tourism survey shows New Zealanders spent slightly less on domestic travel in 2010 than in 2009.

The Domestic Travel Survey, which tracks the domestic spending and travel patterns of New Zealanders, showed a decline in domestic travel in the year to December 2010.

Domestic travellers spent $8.8 billion dollars, a decrease of 1.1 percent on the previous year.

In total, domestic travellers took 16.1 million overnight trips. This is a reduction of 3.8 percent compared to the previous year. Domestic travellers spent 48 million nights away from home (on average three nights per trip), a decrease of 0.5 percent on the previous year. The amount spent on overnight trips for the period was $5.68 billion, a decrease of 2.6 percent on the previous year.

Domestic travellers also took 29.3 million day trips, a decrease of 6.5 percent on the previous year. For day trips, the expenditure was $3.13 billion, up 1.9 percent on the same period in 2009.

“Although more New Zealanders took the chance to travel overseas, their spending on domestic travel did not suffer significantly despite them taking fewer domestic trips during 2010,” said Dr Roger Wigglesworth, Director of Tourism, Events and Consumer Affairs at the Ministry.

Another Ministry survey showed that there was a 5.6 percent increase of overseas travel by New Zealand residents in the same period.

Dr Wigglesworth says the rising cost of fuel and the GST increase may have played a part in the reduction in travel.

The Domestic Travel Survey is an annual telephone survey of 15,000 New Zealand residents and is undertaken throughout the year. Data and reports from the survey are available from www.tourismresearch.govt.nz/dts.