CAM commentary

Guest Nights

In March 2013, a total of 3,399,000 guest nights were spent in short-term commercial accommodation in New Zealand, an increase of 327,000 nights (10.7 percent) from March 2012.

Both the North Island (up 182,000 or 9.8 percent) and South Island (up 145,000 or 12.0 percent) recorded an increase in guest nights in March 2013.

International and Domestic

In March 2013, guest nights comprised 57.3 percent domestic guests (1.95 million guest nights) and 42.7 percent international guests (1.45 million guest nights). Compared with March 2012, domestic guest nights increased 10.9 percent (192,000) and international guest nights increased 10.3 percent (136,000).

Accommodation Types

All four accommodation types recorded an increase in guest nights in March 2013, compared with March 2012.

Holiday parks had the largest increase in guest nights (up 147,000 or 26.0 percent), followed by hotels (up 77,000 or 7.5 percent), motels (up 73,000 or 7.1 percent), and backpacker accommodation (up 30,000 or 6.8 percent).

Occupancy

The overall occupancy rate for accommodation establishments in March 2013 was 45.7 percent, up 3.4 percentage points, compared with 42.2 percent in March 2012.

Holiday parks had the largest increase in occupancy (up 4.6 points to 20.3 percent), followed by motels (up 3.0 points to 62.7 percent), hotels (up 2.9 points to 67.6 percent), and backpacker accommodation (up 0.8 points to 51.3 percent).

RTOs

In March 2013, Auckland recorded the largest increase in guest nights (up 34,000 or 5.5 percent) from March 2012. This was followed by Queenstown (up 34,000 or 15.3 percent), Canterbury (up 34,000 or 12.6 percent), Northland (up 28,000 or 19.7 percent) and Rotorua (up 22,000 or 14.4 percent).

Manawatu recorded the only decrease (down 8,000 or 13.5 percent).

Annual

For the year ended March 2013, there were 31,806,000 guest nights, an increase of 64,000 (0.2 percent) from the previous March year.