Tourism Volumes and Flows
The Tourism Volumes and Flows provide detailed insights into overall visitor activity across New Zealand regions, market segments and timescales.
On this page I tēnei whārangi
Update – January 2026
Summary: Stakeholders are advised that an issue was identified in the inputs affecting the week 17–23 January 2026. The supplier has remediated the affected data to published standards, however additional caution is advised when analysing daily data for this period.
During production of the January 2026 Tourism Volumes and Flows release, the supplier identified an upstream hardware failure within the telecommunications network monitoring equipment. This equipment collects aggregated signals used as input to the Volumes and Flows model.
The technical failure resulted in significantly lower reported counts for the week of 17–23 January, with non-uniform impacts across locations and population segments. If left unaddressed, this would have created an artificial dip in visitor volumes during a period of high activity.
Instead of suppressing the affected week, the supplier undertook a remediation process. The corrected outputs have been validated against event schedules and regional intelligence.
Two individual daytime periods (17 and 22 January) remain excluded from daily reporting. Higher level aggregates (weekly and monthly) remain representative, as they are calculated from available days, although precision for that week is slightly reduced.
Stakeholders are advised to exercise additional caution when conducting analysis at a daily level for 17–23 January.
Introducing Tourism Volumes and Flows (TV&F)
The series delivers granular estimates of the number of visitors present within a destination (volumes) alongside breakdowns by visitor origin (flows), providing the sector with indicators of overall destination performance and the visitation patterns of key markets. Unlike traditional methods focused on entry points like Auckland Airport, this approach offers a more detailed and timely view of travel patterns, helping tourism stakeholders to understand destination performance, visitor behaviour, and regional trends.
The first release featured three measures: monthly unique counts, visitor days (volumes), and visitor days by origin (flows). These were published across domestic and international market segments. Additional measures will be introduced in subsequent phases.
For the latest updates, access the TEIC interactive charts and the downloadable files on the TV&F Data release page:
Tourism Volumes and Flows(external link) — Tourism Evidence and Insights Centre
MBIE will publish TV&F monthly on the Tourism Evidence and Insights Centre (TEIC):
Overview of methods and history
The TV&F is developed by Vistr Ltd and funded by MBIE. The underlying model uses a blend of anonymised human mobility data and national population and travel statistics. This model allows us to provide granular estimates consistently and at scale, with high resolution and minimal lead time.
Learn more about TV&F
Tourism Volumes and Flows user guide [PDF 1.3MB]
The series replaces and expands upon the Monthly Unique Regional Population Estimates (MURPEs), published from September 2022 to October 2023, following sector consultation and recommendations from the Tourism Data Leadership Group.
Data release calendar
Check upcoming scheduled tourism survey releases on our Data release calendar.