Business Tourist Visitor Days

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.