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New tourism data released by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment shows international visitors contributed $12.1 billion to New Zealand’s economy for the year ending June 2025, a 4.3 per cent increase. The growth reaffirms tourism’s position as the country’s second largest export earner, behind dairy.
The annual growth in visitor spending closely aligned with the increase in arrivals over the year. The number of visitors who tend to spend more, particularly those from the USA and those coming for holidays or vacations, has continued to rise. In contrast, the proportion of lower spending visitors, such as people staying with family and relatives, was unchanged.
Visitors from the USA recorded the highest median daily spend at $380 — 2.7 per cent more than 2019 levels when adjusted for inflation. This was followed by visitors from China at $366. On the other hand, visitors from the UK had the lowest median daily spend at $207.
International visitor arrivals are now at 87 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. For the year ending June 2025, 3.38 million visitors came to New Zealand, up from 3.21 million in 2024.
This aligns with the visitor spend for the year ending June 2025, which is at 86 per cent of 2019 levels ($9.6 billion) when taking inflation into account.
In the June 2025 quarter alone, international visitors brought $2.5 billion, down 3.6 per cent from the same quarter in 2024. This decrease in spend aligns with the drop in the arrival proportions of high spending visitors from the USA and China in the June 2025 quarter, down by 0.1 and 0.7 percentage points respectively, when compared with the same quarter in 2024.
For the June 2025 quarter, Net Promoter Score increased by 7 points to 71 when compared to the same quarter last year. The score means that the proportion of visitors who would promote NZ as a holiday destination is 71 percentage points more than those who would not. That visitors had a positive experience in New Zealand and are more likely to recommend it as a holiday destination.
