Strong Chinese and Korean traffic offsets soft Japanese market in Auckland – 19/06/07

NEW ZEALAND. The Japanese visitor market continued to be soft in April, with arrivals to Auckland International Airport down by -16.1% year-on-year to 4,816.

For the financial year to date (ten months completed), the Japanese market was off by -15.2% to 73,813.

But there was better news from China and South Korea, both bigger visitor markets than the Japanese. Visitors from China rose +17.1% in the month to 10,302 and +24% for the first ten months to 77,370. This reflects the success of Air New Zealand’s Shanghai service, said Auckland International Airport Limited.

South Korean visitors climbed by +12.3% in April to 6,492, and by a more modest +2.9% for the year to date to 69,717. Thai arrivals (+6.5%) and Malaysians (+18.0%) also rose sharply in the month.

Overall international arrivals were up +1.2% and international departures +1.7% in April. New Zealand resident arrivals increased by +3.1%. However, April saw a decline for the major inbound markets of Australia (-1.1%), UK (-10.7%) and the US (-5.7%).

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