International Travel 10 July

International travel covers the number and characteristics of overseas visitors and New Zealand resident travellers (short-term movements) entering or leaving New Zealand.

Key facts

Monthly arrivals - overseas visitors
Monthly arrivals - New Zealand-resident travellers
Annual arrivals
Border crossings
Resumption of seasonally adjusted and trend series

Monthly arrivals - overseas visitors

Overseas visitor arrivals were 179,700 in the May 2024 month, increasing by 19,300 from the May 2023 month. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 9,300)
• China (up 5,400)
• Taiwan (up 1,700)
• United States (up 1,000)
• India (down 1,000).

The May 2024 number of overseas visitor arrivals was 82 percent of the pre-COVID-19 number of 219,300 in May 2019.

Of the 179,700 overseas visitor arrivals in May 2024:

• 46 percent were from Australia (compared with 42 percent in May 2019)
• 9 percent were from the United States (8 percent in May 2019)
• 8 percent were from China (13 percent in May 2019)
• 5 percent were from India (3 percent in May 2019)
• 3 percent were from the United Kingdom (3 percent in May 2019).

Monthly arrivals - New Zealand-resident travellers

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 223,400 in the May 2024 month, increasing by 19,800 from the May 2023 month. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 10,500)
• China (up 3,700)
• Indonesia (up 1,800)
• Japan (up 1,700)
• Cook Islands (up 1,600).

The May 2024 number of New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals was 95 percent of the pre-COVID-19 number of 235,200 in May 2019.

Of the 223,400 New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in May 2024:

• 42 percent were from Australia (compared with 43 percent in May 2019)
• 7 percent were from Fiji (7 percent in May 2019)
• 6 percent were from the United States (8 percent in May 2019)
• 5 percent were from China (5 percent in May 2019)
• 4 percent were from the Cook Islands (4 percent in May 2019)
• 4 percent were from the United Kingdom (4 percent in May 2019).

Annual arrivals

Overseas visitor arrivals were 3.21 million in the May 2024 year, increasing by 753,000 from the May 2023 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• China (up 175,000 to 226,000)
• United States (up 122,000 to 377,000)
• Australia (up 82,000 to 1.3 million)
• Korea (up 34,000 to 70,000)
• India (up 33,000 to 86,000)
• Japan (up 30,000 to 61,000).

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 2.90 million in the May 2024 year, increasing by 795,000 from the May 2023 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 324,000 to 1.16 million)
• China (up 104,000 to 134,000)
• United States (up 43,000 to 169,000)
• Japan (up 38,000 to 65,000)
• Indonesia (up 32,000 to 62,000)
• Fiji (up 32,000 to 207,000).

Border crossings

There were 876,400 border crossings in May 2024, made up of 411,600 arrivals and 464,900 departures. In April 2024 there were 1.02 million border crossings.

May 2024 border crossings were 89 percent of the 983,600 in May 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Resumption of seasonally adjusted and trend series

In October 2023 we resumed the publication of seasonally adjusted and trend series for international travel with the release of August 2023 data.

Methodology for bridging seasonally adjusted international travel and migration series impacted by COVID-19 has more information.

In March 2024, with the release of January 2024 data, a methodological change was made to cope with the impact of the pandemic. Seasonally adjusted and trend series up to February 2020 will no longer be revised, to avoid any unintended revisions in the historical series caused by recent data.

Digital arrival card

A digital arrival card (New Zealand Traveller Declaration - NZTD) is available to travellers who have entered New Zealand from mid-July 2023, alongside the existing paper arrival card. Christchurch and Wellington airports were the first to use the NZTD, followed by Queenstown airport in late July 2023 and Auckland airport in late August 2023.

Data from July 2023 onwards therefore includes a growing proportion of digital responses, although paper responses are still the majority. In May 2024, about 1 in 3 of all traveller arrivals completed the digital NZTD.

The implementation of the NZTD has no impact on the range of statistical information available to international travel and migration customers.

Early and provisional international travel data

Each week, Stats NZ releases early and provisional international travel statistics - International travel (provisional) - to facilitate analysis of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact on New Zealand's inbound and outbound tourism sectors.

This includes:

• weekly travel data for short-term overseas visitor and New Zealand-resident arrivals
• arrivals and departures data based solely on border crossings into and out of New Zealand
• stock estimates of visitors in New Zealand and New Zealand residents travelling overseas, based on arrivals and departures.

COVID-19 data portal also has summarised daily data.

More data

Use Infoshare to access time-series data for international travel and migration:

Subject category: Tourism
Group: International travel and migration - ITM

Definitions and metadata

International travel - DataInfo+ gives general methodology used to produce international travel and migration statistics.

International travel concepts - DataInfo+ gives definitions of terms used in this release.

Subnational short-term NZ-resident arrivals - DataInfo+ gives methodology for determining the New Zealand-location information in short-term New Zealand-resident arrival records.

Technical enquiries

Mosiana Ha'unga
03 964 8838
[email protected]

ISSN 2624-2710

Next release

International travel: June 2024 will be released on 13 August 2024.