International visitor arrivals to New Zealand for October 2012 reflected the impact of the Rugby World Cup 2011, with total arrivals down 14.7% last month, Statistics New Zealand says.
The latest figures are the first to reveal the full impact of the tournament on the previous year's figures. They also show arrivals flat across the full year, down slightly at -0.6% for the year ending October.
"Given we had 133,000 visitors to New Zealand for the RWC 2011, the fall month-on-month is expected," Tourism New Zealand chief executive Kevin Bowler said.
"Although overall year-on-year results are flat, that does not tell the whole story. With total arrivals up 1.9% over two years ago, year ending October 2010, we can see that there has been a significant change in the market mix and there is still underlying growth in the sector."
Notable growth came from Australia, up 1.4%, and significant growth from China, up 39.2% for the past year.
One long-haul market bucking the trend was Germany, with arrivals up 8.6% for the month.
