The latest international visitor arrivals to New Zealand reflect the impact of the Rugby World Cup 2011, with total arrivals down 14.7% in the month of October 2012.
The latest figures are the first to reveal the full impact of RWC2011 on the previous year’s figures.
The figures also show arrivals flat across the full year, down slightly at minus 0.6 per cent for the year ending October.
Tourism New Zealand chief executive Kevin Bowler said the result for October arrivals was no surprise, "given we had 133,000 visitors to New Zealand for the RWC 2011, the fall month-on-month is expected".
He said while overall year-on-year results were flat, "that does not tell the whole story".
"With total arrivals up 1.9% over two years ago (YE Oct 2010), we can see that there has been a significant change in the market mix and there is still underlying growth in the sector.
"While long-haul markets with struggling economies are understandably down, we continue to see growth from Australia, up 1.4%, and significant growth from China up 39.2% for the past year."
Other Asian markets showed growth during October, with Japan arrivals up 20.2% and Korea up 12.4% for the month.
“We also anticipate that the growing awareness of New Zealand as the result of the release of the first Hobbit movie will increase preference for travel to New Zealand across all markets – including other long-haul markets such as the United States and Europe,” Bowler said.
