NZ record tourism pushes hotel, motel occupancy to highest ever levels

Record tourism has driven New Zealand hotel and motel occupancy rates to their highest ever levels and prompted the industry to start making plans to cope with ever increasing demand.

The country's hotel occupancy rate increased 2.4 percentage points to a record high 80.3 percent in February while the motel rate advanced 2.2 percentage points to a record 75.3 percent, Statistics New Zealand said.

Demand for short-term accommodation in New Zealand is building as tourism continues to grow. February visitor arrivals increased 9 percent to a new record high for the month, setting a fresh annual record of 3.2 million visitors. Guest nights have been rising for about the past two years, with the latest figures showing gains across all regions, all accommodation types, and driven by both domestic and international guests.

"New Zealand is just a hot destination right now. We had a record summer and so tourism continues to grow very strongly," said Tourism Industry Association chief executive Chris Roberts. "Occupancy rates are increasing which is good and for now, yes, we do have sufficient accommodation, but with this growth forecast to continue we will need significant additional rooms in the coming years and there's a lot of focus right now on facilitating that investment and seeing that that investment takes place."

Over the next few months, NZ Trade and Enterprise is building a forecasting model to assess current growth and forecast future needs, which can be used to promote investment internationally, Mr Roberts said.

"Market forces will mostly provide what we need but the strength of the growth we are seeing may have caught the market out," he said. "In the past two years, we have probably seen about five years of growth. There might be a lag because of how rapid the growth currently is."

He said there is a role for central and local government to see what they can do to speed up processes to remove any red tape and put opportunities in front of investors.

New Zealand has benefited from a higher profile following the Hobbit movies, and is seeing a "very strong rebound" in tourism following a quiet four to five years after the global financial crisis in 2008, he said.

"We are seeing every one of our major markets growing," he said.

That strong growth is likely to continue for at least the next couple of years after a significant increase in airline capacity, as well as increased demand for one-time events such as the Lions Rugby Tour and the World Masters games next year, he said.

(BusinessDesk)