The Queenstown regional tourism organisation has criticised the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) for having to revise its estimate of international tourism spending across New Zealand down by more than 8%, or $910 million for the year ended October 2017.
Destination Queenstown chief executive Graham Budd said, "Destination Queenstown is very disappointed by such a significant adjustment, as it creates a lack of trust in the integrity of the inputs and data sets used."
Regional tourist organisations (RTOs) use the Monthly Regional Tourism Estimates (or MRTEs) created by MBIE as a performance indicator and to make strategic planning for the future.
Following the release of the November data, estimates for international tourism spending were revised down across all regions of the country. Tasman experiencing the largest drop, at 15%, followed by a 14% drop in the West Coast.
The Otago region was revised down 12%, taking the previous estimate of $2153 million down to $1896 million.
However, domestic spending across the country was revised up about $540 million for the year ending October 2017, an increase of about 3%. Auckland and Nelson experienced the largest domestic spending increase at 4.7%.
Otago increased 3.3% from a previous estimate of $1596 million up to $1649 million.
In the document "Monthly Regional Tourism Estimates — Information on improvements January 2018" released on Tuesday, MBIE said MRTEs were created using a base of electronic card transaction data but that excluded many parts of tourism spending, such as cash purchases and products purchased online before arriving in New Zealand.
This data is collected in the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) data which is published late in the year and the MRTEs forecasts are revised based on total tourism spending.
MBIE admitted this year’s revision was a relatively large one but also said, "MRTEs are published provisionally ... revisions are not considered errors, and are part of standard statistical processes".
Executive director of Regional Tourism NZ, Charlie Ives, said RTOs expected an adjustment to be made in October but it was usually in the range of 1% to 2%.
"RTOs are primarily funded by local councils and local government, so there is a fair amount of oversight as to how the money given to them is spent.
"One of those key performance indicators is obviously the MRTE, so having to go back to your funders and say ‘Sorry, we got it wrong’ just creates confusion, and brings into question the validity of the data," Mr Ives said.
James Helmore, of Lake Wanaka Tourism, described MRTEs as his "go-to data set".
"Tourism is the number one export earner in the country, there is a lot of money at stake and you need to understand who is coming and what value is derived from these people and that [MRTE] information helps us to plan."
He said it was the "most important data set" but it could be better.
Mr Budd said: "While we acknowledge and accept the need for MBIE to be transparent about these changes, the industry needs some certainty that future releases will be reliable and able to be trusted."
MBIE said it "will continue looking for ways to improve the methodology and accuracy of the MRTEs".
