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February 26, 2025 3 mins

International visitor numbers aren't quite back to pre-pandemic figures, but their wallets are. 

Overseas tourist spending hit nearly $17 billion to the year to March 2024 – just under 2019 levels. 

Visitor numbers sit at around 89% of figures five years ago. 

Tourism New Zealand Chief Executive, Rene de Monchy told Mike Hosking there's plenty of capacity for international visitors, particularly in the 'off-peak' season. 

He says encouraging people to come between March and November is a major focus. 

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good news from tourism spending is almost back to what
it was pre nineteen sixteen point nine billion dollars in
the year to March total. If you added all up,
it's up fourteen point six percent to forty four and
a half billion dollars, a lot of money. Tourism New
Zealand boss Renee demoshes back with us. Rene, very good
morning to you.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Good morning, Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
So we don't need the people, We just need their wallets.
That's what this boils down to. Is it quality not quantity?

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well, we want both, Mike, and look, I think there's
plenty of capacity and we actually want both. But it
is a good news story. You know those are that's
a pretty big growth number. Six billion dollars of growth
in tourism spend in the year to march. You know,
that's the significant uplift from a major expert.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
I'm glad to hear you say plenty of capacity because
I was watching the news last night and they managed
to find yet another moner who was saying that, you know,
the infrastructure can't cope and it's all too busy, and
it's is it or not.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well, Look, I think it's important we've got to promote
New Zealand year round. But if you think about it,
as we talked about previously, you know, we're at about
eighty five percent of the visitor numbers that we were
pre COVID, so there's definitely plenty of capacity, and especially
when you look at year round, you know we still
have quite a lot of people that come in the
summer months. How do we also encourage people. It's a

(01:10):
big focus of ours of people to come, you know,
between March and November and not just between December and.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
February shoulder seasons. We're now back to the second largest
exporter and know this is tourism. How far short of
dairy are we because once upon a time you guys
were neck and neck and occasionally beat them.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
Yeah, I mean it's usually one of one or the
other that's number one or two. It's driven a little
bit by commodity pricing of dairy that can be a
fluctuator and in our case, the recovery of tourism. I
don't know exactly how short we are, but i'd say
that at six billion growth a year on year, we're
accelerating fast. So you know, it's great to be back
to number two tourism export. I think we'll continue to

(01:49):
see strong growth in the sector for the year ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
I hearn somebody on board, sorry, carry on.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
And I think that's really important because what the numbers
also shows, actually in that same period, domestic has been
declined by two and a half percent, So it's really
important that international tourism is there. Really, bosses the economy.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Couldn't agree more. I heard somebody earlier on in the
station suggesting we're expensive. How is it? How can we
be expensive when I hand over fifty five US cents
for a dollar and forty five p for a dollar.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Yeah, look, the exchange rate out of the US certainly helps.
But look, New Zealand is by no means a cheap destination.
You know, you have to travel quite a long way
for most of the world, you have to take quite
a long time, and you do have to spend quite
a lot of money, so we're a premium destination. I
don't think we're cheap, but you know, having a good
foreign exchange rate with the US dollar and with a

(02:42):
pound that certainly helps because it just lowers the barrier.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Very good to be able to have a compositive conversation
about Tourism Reno, appreciate your time. Tourism New Zealand CEO.
The money is flying the Americans really has become a
real thing, thank the good Lord, because the Chinese aren't
coming back, and we've got the visa issue, and they
travel seemingly domestically, and if it's not literally themes tolar,
it's within the immediate region, and I don't know that
they're ever necessarily coming back in the numbers they were

(03:05):
once coming back in. So it's encouraging to see tourism
as is up and running to a degree anyway, financially speaking.
For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks i'd Be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio
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