Source: MIL-OSI Submissions
Tourism satellite account: Year ended March 2021
10 December 2021
Tourism satellite account: Year ended March 2021 provides a picture of the role tourism plays in New Zealand, with information on the changing levels and impact of tourism activity. It presents information on tourism’s contribution to the New Zealand economy in terms of expenditure and employment. Results cover provisional figures for the year ended March 2021 and detailed results for 2020.
Key provisional estimates
Note: The 2021 annual estimates featured capture the impact of COVID-19 in New Zealand between the period April 2020 and March 2021. The extent of COVID-19’s impact beyond this period will be evident in Tourism satellite account: Year ended March 2022, to be published in December 2022.
Key provisional estimates for the year ended March 2021:
- total tourism expenditure was $26.1 billion, a decrease of 37.3 percent ($15.6 billion) from the previous year
- international tourism expenditure decreased 91.5 percent ($16.2 billion) to $1.5 billion:
- international student expenditure (studying less than 12 months) was $78 million, a decrease of 98.1 percent ($4.1 billion)
- international tourism’s overall contribution to New Zealand’s total exports of goods and services fell to 2.1 percent from 20.0 percent, a decrease of 17.9 percentage points
- GST generated from international tourists totalled $165 million, a decrease of $1.7 billion
- overseas visitor arrivals to New Zealand decreased 98.6 percent (3.6 million arrivals) to 52,690
- domestic tourism expenditure increased 2.6 percent ($622 million) to $24.6 billion:
- household tourism expenditure increased 8.1 percent ($1.4 billion)
- business and government decreased 13.0 percent ($815 million)
- tourism generated a direct contribution to GDP of $8.5 billion, or 2.9 percent of GDP, a decrease of 47.5 percent ($7.7 billion), or 2.6 percentage points
- the indirect value added of industries supporting tourism generated an additional $5.8 billion, or 1.9 percent of GDP
- the number of people attributed to being directly employed in tourism was 146,295 – a decrease of 33.1 percent (72,285 people)
- the number of tourism employees was 126,204 – a decrease of 34.2 percent (65,550)
- the number of tourism working proprietors was 20,091 – a decrease of 25.1 percent (6,738)
- as a share of the total number of people employed in New Zealand, direct tourism employment was 5.2 percent, a decrease of 2.7 percentage points from the previous year.
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