International Travel 11 September

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

Monthly arrivals - overseas visitors

Overseas visitor arrivals were 221,800 in the July 2024 month, an increase of 8,000 from the July 2023 month. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 11,400)
• China (up 10,000)
• United States (down 13,100).

July 2023 saw a boost in overseas visitor arrivals from the United States, coinciding with the FIFA Women's World Cup 2023 hosted by New Zealand and Australia.

The total number of overseas visitor arrivals in July 2024 was 87 percent of the 255,600 in July 2019 (before the COVID-19 pandemic).

Of the 221,800 overseas visitor arrivals in July 2024:

• 50 percent were from Australia (compared with 50 percent in July 2019)
• 12 percent were from China (11 percent in July 2019)
• 7 percent were from the United States (7 percent in July 2019)
• 3 percent were from the United Kingdom (3 percent in July 2019).

Monthly arrivals - New Zealand-resident travellers

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 314,000 in the July 2024 month, an increase of 25,200 from the July 2023 month. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 14,600)
• Indonesia (up 4,500)
• Fiji (up 3,000)
• China (up 2,500).

The July 2024 number of New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals was 92 percent of the pre-COVID-19 number of 340,200 in July 2019.

Of the 314,000 New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in July 2024:

• 36 percent were from Australia (compared with 36 percent in July 2019)
• 9 percent were from Fiji (9 percent in July 2019)
• 6 percent were from the United States (8 percent in July 2019)
• 6 percent were from the United Kingdom (6 percent in July 2019)
• 5 percent were from China (4 percent in July 2019)
• 4 percent were from Indonesia (4 percent in July 2019)
• 4 percent were from the Cook Islands (4 percent in July 2019).

Annual arrivals

Overseas visitor arrivals were 3.22 million in the July 2024 year, an increase of 604,000 from the July 2023 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• China (up 167,000 to 241,000)
• United States (up 77,000 to 365,000)
• Australia (up 73,000 to 1.31 million)
• Korea (up 30,000 to 70,000)
• Japan (up 26,000 to 62,000)
• Taiwan (up 23,000 to 45,000)
• India (up 20,000 to 84,000).

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals were 2.94 million in the July 2024 year, an increase of 612,000 from the July 2023 year. The biggest changes were in arrivals from:

• Australia (up 284,000 to 1.19 million)
• China (up 91,000 to 139,000)
• Japan (up 33,000 to 68,000)
• Indonesia (up 28,000 to 69,000)
• United States (up 24,000 to 169,000)
• Fiji (up 23,000 to 210,000).

Border crossings

There were 1.07 million border crossings in July 2024, made up of 548,200 arrivals and 516,900 departures. In July 2023 there were 989,600 border crossings.

July 2024 border crossings were 90 percent of the 1.18 million in July 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

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 July 2024, about 2 in 5 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 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.

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: August 2024 will be released on 11 October 2024.