Total Tourist Visitor Days

IBISWorld forecasts the total number of tourist visitor days to increase by 3.8% in 2024-25, to 133.08 million days. Real household discretionary income is anticipated to remain high in the current year, especially when compared with a pre-pandemic environment. This will encourage New Zealanders to continue booking and undertaking domestic holidays. The number of short-term trips to international destinations by Australian residents is also expected to rise significantly in 2024-25. Australians represent a key source of inbound tourism, and greater demand from this market will drive growth in international tourist visitor days.

Traditionally, domestic residents accounted for the majority of total tourist visitor days. For example, domestic tourists made up just under 65% of total visitor days in 1999-00. However, strong rises in inbound tourism over the past decade have reduced this share, with domestic tourists accounting for 48.1% of total visitor days in 2019-20. However, this drastically increased over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic due to international travel restrictions, causing domestic residents’ share of visitor days to skyrocket to an estimated 93.7% in 2020-21. Domestic residents are expected to decline to 41.9% of total visitor days in 2024-25.