Record January For New Zealanders Travelling

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals in January 2024 was a record for any January month, according to data released by Stats NZ today.

There were 328,100 New Zealand-resident travellers who arrived back in January 2024. This exceeded the pre-COVID numbers of 320,900 in January 2019 and 326,300 in January 2020.

"Arrivals are typically high in January as New Zealanders return from summer breaks, mostly from visiting friends and relatives, and holidaying abroad," population indicators manager Tehseen Islam said.

The record number of New Zealand-resident arrivals for any month was 345,100 in July 2018.

In January 2024, Australia was the top destination for New Zealand-resident travellers, followed by China, the United States, Fiji, and India.

New Zealand-resident traveller arrivals are people living in New Zealand and arriving back after an absence of less than 12 months.

Visitor arrivals

There were 326,400 overseas visitor arrivals in January 2024. This was up 58,100 (22 percent) from January 2023.

"While outbound travel from New Zealand has returned to pre-pandemic levels, overseas visitor arrivals were still about 20 percent lower than they were," Islam said.

The main sources of overseas visitors were Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, and China.

In the year ended January 2024, overseas visitor arrivals totalled 3.0 million, compared with a peak of 3.9 million in the year ended October 2019.