Business Environment Profiles - New Zealand
Published: 16 July 2024
Business tourist visitor days
16 Million
-1.5 %
This report analyses the total number of days spent in New Zealand by domestic and international visitors for business purposes. The data is sourced from Statistics New Zealand (Tatauranga Aotearoa) and represents the number of overnight trips and return day trips per financial year. A day trip is defined as a return journey to a location at least 40 kilometres away from a traveller's usual place of business.
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IBISWorld expects the number of business tourist visitor days to increase by 4.5% during 2024-25, to total 16.3 million days. Over three quarters of business tourist visitor days can be attributed to local residents. Business confidence and the number of businesses are two of the main drivers of corporate travel. While the number of businesses has grown steadily over recent years, fluctuations in business confidence have caused extra volatility in the number of business tourist visitor days that domestic residents have undertaken. Additionally, restrictions imposed to constrain COVID-19's spread significantly discouraged corporate travel and reduced the number of business tourist visitor days over the start of the past five year period. Furthermore, the increased usage of online video conferencing systems has reduced the need for some face-to-face meetings, placing downward pressure on the number of business trips taken.
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly limited travel over the last 5 year period, particularly from international business tourists, since March 2020. However, the New Zealand Government (Te Kawanatanga o Aotearoa) fully reopened the country's international borders from October 2022, spurring continued recovery in business tourist visitor days in the years following, including the current year. Nevertheless, remote videoconferencing platforms are rapidly being taken up, which is expected to constrain how quickly businesses return to conducting face-to-face meetings.
According to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (Hikina Whakatutuki), the number of inbound arrivals for business purposes increased from 2015-16 to 2019-20, which was before the COVID-19 outbreak. The average stay days per inbound business tourist fell because overseas corporate travellers opted for more frequent but shorter trips in the country, as price competition between airlines placed downward pressure on business-class airfares. However, the pandemic reversed these trends; the number of international business tourist days has dropped sharply over the past five years, while the average stay days increased. This trend indicates that international business tourists travelling to New Zealand have been electing to extend their stay, likely because COVID-19 affected it less compared with many other countries. IBISWorld forecasts the number of business tourist visitor days to fall at an annualised 1.5% over the five years through 2024-25, as some negative effects of the pandemic linger.
IBISWorld expects the total number of business tourist days to increase by 4.3% during 2025-26, t...
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