Auckland has experienced a bumper first half of the year with record numbers of international and domestic visitors choosing to come to the region for a holiday.

Domestic and international commercial guest nights, between January and June, have hit 3,65 million, up 2.6 per cent compared to the same timeframe last year. Domestic guest nights made up 56 per cent of this and international guest nights 44 per cent.

More than 1.3 million rooms have been sold in Auckland hotels alone in the last six months, worth around $106 million, up $13 million compared to the same period last year.

Just over one million international visitors have arrived in Auckland in the last six months, up 9 per cent compared to the same period last year, with more than half of these visitors here on holiday, up almost 14 per cent.

Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development Chief Executive Brett O’Riley says these are some great results for Auckland.

“It’s fantastic to see the tourism industry experiencing such solid growth in both our domestic and key international markets. It’s particularly good to see that Auckland is attracting more domestic visitors than any other region in the country helping smooth out seasonal peaks,” he says.

“We’re still seeing some good momentum on the back of our unprecedented summer of major events and our focus now is to keep building on Auckland’s popularity and attract more Australian and domestic visitors in our shoulder season.”

Auckland has also experienced double digit growth in the Asian market in the last six months. Chinese holidaymakers increased by 36.26 per cent, Japanese by 16.23 per cent and Koreans almost 25 per cent.

There has also been good increases in our other key markets, with Australia up just over 3 per cent, Germany up 2.23 per cent, United Kingdom up almost 15 per cent, Canada up 2.61 per cent and USA up 14.31 per cent.

Mayor Len Brown says these results further cement Auckland’s positioning as a top tourism destination.

“Tourism provides direct benefits to Auckland and plays a key role in achieving Auckland’s vision. More visitors to the region creates more jobs, more money for the economy and

helps support the development of better infrastructure to accelerate the transformation of Auckland to the world’s most liveable city.”

The Auckland Visitor Plan – created on behalf of Auckland Council – aims to grow the region’s visitor economy from a $4.8 billion industry in 2012 to a $7.2 billion sector in 2021. Integral to this is to grow annual domestic tourism receipts from $2.37 billion in 2012 to $3 billion in 2021.

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