SKY-HIGH EXPORT EARNER

New Zealand’s international tourism market might not be growing at the same breakneck speed it has over the past five years, but the industry is still New Zealand’s largest export earner with total annual tourism expenditure of $39.1 billion and annual international tourism expenditure of $16.2 billion.

The Statistics NZ Tourism Satellite Account for the year ended March 2018, which was issued in December 2018, shows the industry contributes 21 percent of the country’s foreign exchange earnings.

While international visitor numbers have now slowed, they are still growing. The latest figures from Statistics NZ in early August say that the total number of international visitor arrivals into New Zealand for the year ended June 2019 was 3.89 million, up 2.7 percent on the previous year.

However, Statistics NZ