Strong New Zealand dollar curbs growth in visitor spending

Record numbers of overseas visitors are offsetting a levelling off in visitor spending as a result of New Zealand's strengthening dollar, according to government figures out Friday.

International visitor spending grew 4 percent to 10.1 billion NZ dollars (7.29 billion U.S. dollars) last year, according to a report from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).

The report said performance across major markets and purposes of visit has been mixed.

The Chinese market had shown a slight decline -- down 1 percent to 1.7 billion NZ dollars (1.23 billion U.S. dollars) -- while the Republic of Korea market was up 82 percent to 299 million NZ dollars (215.82 million U.S. dollars).

The results suggested that while international visitor spending growth remained positive, spending had begun to stabilize after period of record growth, MBIE manager of sector trends Peter Ellis said in a statement.

"Over the last quarter, the New Zealand dollar appreciated against the currencies of some of our key tourist markets, such as the United Kingdom, China and Canada, which likely contributed to growth in international visitor spend being lower than previous quarters," said Ellis.

The average spend per visitor was down 6 percent to 3,230 NZ dollars (2,332 U.S. dollars).

"However, the record high 3.5 million visitors in the 2016 year has kept visitor spending growth positive at 4 percent," said Ellis.

Overseas holidaymakers spent the most with a total spend of 6.4 billion NZ dollars (4.62 billion U.S. dollars), up 10 percent from 2015.

Tourism Minister Paula Bennett said the figures confirmed spending by international tourists remained strong.

"Tourism is our biggest export market and is hugely important to our economy," Bennett said in a statement.

"It's positive to see the industry still achieve a 4 percent increase in visitor spending after record growth in 2015. We want to maintain these numbers." Endit