New Zealand’s Rugby World Cup 2011 (RWC 2011) has surpassed visitor forecasts thanks to a second strong month of international arrivals.
Date shows that 16.8 percent more visitors arrived in October 2011 than the same month last year.
The total number of visitors arriving for the Rugby World Cup 2011 is confirmed at 133,200 against a forecast of 95,000 for July through to the end of October.
Tourism New Zealand chief Kevin Bowler said to see the forecasts exceeded so resoundingly was a fantastic result.
“We promoted the New Zealand message hard around the tournament and so expected to see this sort of growth from traditional rugby-loving nations like Australia (up 17,200 people, 21.2 percent), South Africa (up 4,900, 417.4 percent) the UK (up 2,800, 18.8 percent) and France (up 2,700, 146.6 percent).
“What we also see in the October result is that the RWC helped lift year-end visitor arrivals back into growth (up 2.6 percent) after a really difficult year.
“The steady, significant growth in visitors from China (up 22.8 percent); Malaysia (up 141 percent) and Singapore (up 99 percent) round out what was a very good month for inbound international arrivals.â€
