Tourism and the economy

The Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) report presents information on tourism's contribution to the New Zealand economy in terms of expenditure and employment.

Latest Tourism Satellite Account — Dec 2022 Update

Stats NZ develops and publishes the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) with funding we provide.

The 2022 TSA report provides a picture of the role tourism plays in New Zealand, with information on the changing levels and impact of tourism activity. Results cover provisional figures for the year ended March 2022, and detailed results for 2021.

Tourism Satellite Account: Year-ended March 2022 [PDF, 1.5 MB]

Tourism Satellite Account: Year-ended March 2022 tables 1-18 [XLSX, 149 KB]

Tourism Satellite Account: Year-ended March 2022 tables 19-26 [XLSX, 49 KB]

Note: Tables 19-26 contain detailed tables for the year ended March 2021.

2022 Key Provisional Estimates

Note: The 2022 annual estimates captured the impact of COVID-19 in New Zealand between the period April 2021 and March 2022. The impact of the border reopening to international visitors from April 2022 will be evident in Tourism satellite account: Year ended March 2023, to be published in December 2023.

Key provisional estimates for the year ended March 2022:

total tourism expenditure was $26.5 billion, an increase of 2.7 percent ($704 million) from the previous year
international tourism expenditure increased 30.6 percent ($455 million) to $1.9 billion:
- international student expenditure (studying less than 12 months) was $184 million, an increase of 135.7 percent ($106 million)
- international tourism’s overall contribution to New Zealand’s total exports of goods and services was 2.4 percent, an increase of 0.4 percentage points
- GST generated from international tourists totalled $209 million, an increase of $72 million
overseas visitor arrivals to New Zealand increased 335.3 percent to 229,370
domestic tourism expenditure increased 1.0 percent ($249 million) to $24.6 billion:
- household tourism expenditure decreased 1.7 percent ($344 million)
- business and government increased 14.2 percent ($593 million)
tourism generated a direct contribution to GDP of $10.0 billion, or 3.0 percent of GDP, an increase of 1.3 percent ($132 million)
the indirect value added of industries supporting tourism generated an additional $6.6 billion, or 2.0 percent of GDP
the number of people attributed to being directly employed in tourism was 145,032 – an increase of 2.6 percent (3,615 people)
- the number of tourism employees was 125,622 – an increase of 3.2 percent (3,888)
- the number of tourism working proprietors was 19,413 – a decrease of 1.4 percent (267)
- as a share of the total number of people employed in New Zealand, direct tourism employment was 5.2 percent.

Interpretation of data

The data sources used in deriving the numbers for the March 2021 and 2022 years at an industry, commodity, and resultant aggregate level will be subject to future updates. These updates reflect COVID-19 related methodological challenges and further assessment and interpretation of the expenditure compositional change as part of the 2023 cycle of annual analysis and updated input datasets. Data presented in this TSA for these years should serve to provide initial guidance but may be subject to larger than usual updates.
Accommodation expenditure in the March 2022 year has been impacted by both Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ), and the use of traditional accommodation providers for emergency housing. The vast majority of MIQ expenditure, and emergency housing, is not tourism activity as it is for returning New Zealand residents and therefore excluded from the accommodation expenditure estimates.
Tourism employment figures are only estimated by the Tourism Satellite Account. The estimates are calculated by applying each tourism-related industry’s ratio (the proportion of expenditure in that industry attributed to tourism) to that industry’s employment counts. The impact of COVID-19 has significantly changed these previously consistent industry ratios due to a decrease in tourism expenditure and, for some industries, an increase in overall expenditure. Therefore, direct tourism employment should be interpreted as employees directly engaged in tourism rather than actual counts.

The Sustainable Tourism Explorer (STE) has been updated with the new TSA data

TSA data are now available in the STE in the form of interactive graphs. As well as visualising the data, you can also customise the graphs and download them or the related data.

Tourism GDP as a proportion of total GDP(external link) — Tourism Evidence and Insights Centre (TEIC)

Direct tourism value added by industry(external link) — TEIC (not available for the provisional year-ended March 2022, only up to 2021)

Direct and indirect employment from tourism(external link) — TEIC

2022 Revisions

Tourism satellite account: Year ended March 2022 includes updates made to both the domestic and international tourism expenditure series. These updates cause changes to the value of tourism expenditure in the New Zealand economy, and affect the official tourism satellite account (TSA) time series.

Updates to the expenditure series included the following.

Historic changes to export education source data used to derive international student expenditure.
Updated source data used in the derivation of imputed rental on holiday homes.
Methodological improvements and changes:
- integrating updated Annual Enterprise Survey (AES) data (2019 and 2020) and AES 2021 data with household tourism expenditure estimates (HTEE)
- modelling of the HTEE across the full year ended March 2022 due to changes in data supply arrangements (covered in detail in 'Appendix 2: Methodology' in download document)
- updated HTEE supplementary data sources
- modelling of international visitor expenditure for the year ended March 2022 due to the suspension of the airport departure based International Visitor Survey (covered in detail in 'Appendix 2: Methodology' available in download document)
- national accounts data, including updated nominal GDP statistics from 2015 to 2021 (see 2022 preview of national accounts improvements).
Updates were also made to annual Linked Employer-Employee Data and Household Labour Force Survey sources used in determining tourism employment.

Stats NZ — Tourism satellite account: Year ended March 2022 Appendix 2: Methodology Stats NZ(external link)

2022 national accounts improvements preview(external link)

Tourism industry ratios are impacted because of these updates. These ratios are the proportion of an industry’s output that is consumed by tourists and are used to calculate value-added and tourism employment estimates. As a result of the ratio changes, StatsNZ updated the historical value added-time series. Together with the ratio changes, StatsNZ also updated the tourism employment time series.

More data

More detailed Tourism Satellite Account data and technical information is available on Stats NZ's website.

Stats NZ — Tourism(external link)

Previous Tourism Satellite Account tables

Note: Tables 19-26 contain detailed tables for the year ended March 2018.

2018 Tourism Satellite Account Tables

Tourism Satellite Account 2018: Excel Tables 1-18 [XLSX, 193 KB]

Tourism Satellite Account 2018: Excel Tables 19-26 [XLSX, 82 KB]

Note: Tables 19-26 contain detailed tables for the year ended March 2017.

2017 Tourism Satellite Account Tables

Tourism Satellite Account 2017: Excel Tables 1-18 [XLSX, 189 KB]

Tourism Satellite Account 2017: Excel Tables 19-26 [XLSX, 78 KB]

Note: Tables 19-26 contain detailed tables for the year ended March 2016.

2016 Tourism Satellite Account Tables

Tourism Satellite Account 2016: Excel Tables 1-16 [XLSX, 154 KB]

Tourism Satellite Account 2016: Excel Tables 19-26 [XLSX, 60 KB]

Note: Tables 19-26 contain detailed tables for the year ended March 2013.

2015 Tourism Satellite Account Tables

Tourism Satellite Account 2015: Excel Tables 1-14 [XLSX, 185 KB]

Tourism Satellite Account 2015: Excel Tables 17-24 [XLSX, 57 KB]

Note: Tables 17-24 contain detailed tables for the year ended March 2012.

2014 Tourism Satellite Account Tables

Tourism Satellite Account 2014: Excel Tables 1-14 [XLSX, 193 KB]

Tourism Satellite Account 2014: Excel Tables 17-24 [XLSX, 69 KB]

Note: Tables 17-24 contain detailed tables for the year ended March 2011.

Last updated: 20 December 2022

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