Border crossings continued to increase in June 2022, reaching the highest for any month since border and travel restrictions were introduced in March 2020, Stats NZ has released.
There were 420,200 border crossings in June 2022 made up of 206,000 arrivals and 214,100 departures.
In May 2022, there were 344,800 border crossings. Current numbers are well below the almost 1 million border crossings in June 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Border crossings have increased since the beginning of the year as border restrictions progressively eased,” population indicators manager Tehseen Islam says.
Provisional data for July 2022 show further increases in both arrivals and departures. This coincided with school holidays in New Zealand and Australia, which fell within late June to mid-July.
The New Zealand border has fully reopened from 1 August 2022 to international visitors and students including those from non-visa waiver countries such as China and India.
Border crossings can be further classified into three main passenger types:
• visitors from overseas making short-term trips (less than 12 months)
• New Zealand residents making short-term trips
• migrants (people changing their country of residence).
This breakdown is not immediately known at the time of border crossing but becomes available with the processing of arrival cards and migration estimation.
Overseas visitor arrivals up
There were 94,600 overseas visitor arrivals in June 2022, the highest level since March 2020 when COVID-19-related travel and border restrictions were introduced. By comparison, overseas visitor arrivals totalled just 37,900 in the first three months of 2022.
“The increase in visitor arrivals reflects changes in the border settings which include opening the border to Australian tourists in April 2022, and to visa-waiver countries in May 2022,” Tehseen says.
Of all visitor arrivals in June 2022, 74 per cent were from Australia. This was followed by:
• United States (5 per cent)
• United Kingdom (3 per cent)
• Singapore (2 per cent).
Overseas visitors who stated a travel purpose on arrival were mainly here to visit friends and relatives (52 per cent) followed by holiday/vacation (30 per cent) and business (12 per cent). Arrivals for holiday/vacation have increased compared to early in the year when it was around 3 percent.
Australia main destination for New Zealand-resident travellers
Of the 105,100 New Zealand-resident travellers arriving back in June 2022, 45 per cent returned from a trip to Australia, followed by Fiji (12 per cent) and the Cook Islands (11 per cent).
Almost half of all New Zealand-resident travellers in June 2022 were visiting friends and relatives.
This was followed by holiday/vacation (34 per cent) and business (11 per cent).
