New Zealand revises tourism predictions
New Zealand looks set to welcome fewer tourists than previously expected for the three-year period ending December 2010. Bloomberg has reported that New Zealand’s Tourism Ministry has cut its visitor arrivals prediction for the period by 4.7% due to the global economic slowdown and rising cost of travel. As a result, New Zealand now expects to receive 7.7 million arrivals during the three-year period.
However Tourism Minister Damien O’Connor said he believed the current down turn to be temporary; “We are unlikely to remain unscathed by a number of negative influences,” O’Connor said in the report. “We expect these conditions to persist in the short term. Beyond this, we anticipate a recovery.”
NZ saw 2,455,000 arrivals in 2007, and predicts that over the seven years to 2014, arrivals will rise 26% to exceed 3 million a year. Tourism is the New Zealand’s biggest foreign-exchange earner, making up approximately 10% of the country’s economy.
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