Tourist spending strong in South Island regions, data shows

Paul Brislen
Paul Brislen
Otago, the West Coast and Southland have felt the benefits of strong spending growth by international tourists, Paymark says.

International tourism traditionally played a relatively large role in those regions, a likely factor behind the general strong spending in that part of the country, electronic payments company said in a report.

In February, Otago had 5.87million electronic transactions, up 7.93% on the same period last year. Those payments were worth nearly $294million, up 6.3%.

Southland had 2.26million transactions, up 11.5%. The transactions were worth $114.8million, up 11.6%.

The West Coast had 690,000 transactions valued at $36.4million, up 7.8% and 7% respectively.

Paymark spokesman Paul Brislen said international tourists continued to contribute strongly to spending growth, making up more than 10% of the extra total spending through Paymark in the last four months and more than 50% of growth among accommodation merchants.

Spending nationally through Paymark was $5.01 billion in February, up 5.1% since February 2017 and up 0.1% in seasonally-adjusted terms since January, confirming an ongoing, albeit moderate, spending momentum, he said.

The highest annual underlying growth rates were recorded by merchants in Marlborough (16%) which included Kaikoura, and Southland (11.6%).

Slow growth was experienced in Auckland-Northland (4.4%), Nelson (1.6%) and Canterbury (3.5%).

During the recent busy four months, nationwide Paymark spending reached $20.9billion, up 5.4% on the same period 12 months earlier, Mr Brislen said.

Within the total, payments with foreign-issued credit cards reached $1.8billion, constituting 5.7% of all payments.

At the margin, the tourist impact was greater. Annual growth in international credit card spending was 11.3% of the total spending growth.

The spending impact of international tourists continued to be greatest among accommodation merchants, where they made up 32.8% of the sector payments through Paymark and 55.3% of their annual payment growth.

Other merchants having strong links with international tourists included duty free and gift stores within ``selected retail shops'', art galleries, museums and activity operators, activities and events, and airlines and rental companies within the transport sector.

Conversely, there were many merchants where foreign-issued credit cards represented less than 2% of all spending, such as hardware stores, tyre companies, financial service providers and utility companies, he said.

Otago's spending growth measured through Paymark grew 11.5% in the four months ended February to $213.5million. The region had an 18% share of national spending on foreign-issued credit cards and 6% of all credit card spending.

Southland had $58.9million of Paymark transactions in the four months, up 20.9% on an annual basis. Southland had a 5% share of national spending on foreign-issued credit cards and 2.3% of all credit card spending.

 

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