Total guest nights for the year to June 2008 rose by 2 percent, with the positive trend for North Island guest nights and flat trend in the South Island continuing. While most months in the past year have seen growth in guest numbers, this June was softer than June 2007. From a regional perspective, only Wellington, one of twelve regions monitored, reported higher guest nights in June (plus 1 percent).

International guest nights have slipped in number terms and as a proportion of total guest nights. For example, international guest nights in April were 5.9 percent lower than in April 2007, and the proportion of international guests has slipped from 44 percent in April 2007 to 43 percent in April 2008 and 37 percent in June 2008. However, the overall pattern is not consistently reflected in the pattern for individual countries. Compared to the same month a year ago, measures for the months of July and October 2008 saw rises in tourism from Australia but contractions from Japan, Korea and mixed patterns from other Asian and European countries.

Econ101 tells us that when a foreign economy is doing well, they’ll tend to buy more from overseas – including trips abroad. The strength of our Tasman neighbour appears to bear this out, with year on year growth for most of the last decade, excepting some falls over 2005. The dip is likely to reflect the high exchange rate in 2005 and another economic fact – that a high exchange rate makes domestic goods look expensive to foreigners.  The New Zealand dollar peaked against the Australian at AU$0.9382 in May 2005. Since then it has fallen by 10 percent to August 2008, though not steadily, and by 5 percent in just the last year. Australian guest nights were boosted by 5 percent over the last year up to October 2007, according to the monthly data reported by Statistics New Zealand from the RTO accommodation survey. Unfortunately, origin of guest information is no longer collected in this survey.

The recent harsh weather topped with heavy snow have closed a number of passes and roads in the South Island and occasionally the Dessert Road in the North Island. While this might mean a few extra nights for trapped guests, on the downside it will upset some people’s plans and could cause cancellations elsewhere. On the upside, sunny shots of the Earnslaw set against a sugar-dusted Queenstown and white ranges must be a dream campaign for winter tourism operators, especially those in the South.