It’s a slow post-Covid recovery for tourism, despite last year's surge in overseas arrivals. 

Stats NZ reports that 2.96 million people visited in the year to December, more than 1.5 million up from 2022.  

However, it still falls short of 2019's 3.89 million arrivals.  

Tourism Industry Aotearoa’s CEO Rebecca Ingram told Mike Hosking that these numbers aren’t surprising, as they expected to be at about 80%. 

While the numbers themselves are important, another factor they look at is value. 

Ingram said that the industry is happy with how the summer is going, and visitors seem to be spending more than before. 

In the year to September 2023, $11.1 billion was spent on travel services, well up from $4.4 billion the year before. 

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