NZ's Gisborne Sees the Cruise Tourist Influx in 2017

(Source: Travel Weekly China)

Gisborne, the port city in the north east New Zealand sees the positive vibe in travel and tourism, especially in the cruise tourism, when there are about 60,000 cruise ship passengers have visited there over the last 2 years.

Tairawhiti tourism general manager Adam Hughes has described this situation as the best part in the cruise tourism and the travel trade business along with the tourist's expenditures.

The official data released by Statistics New Zealand this week show that over the 12 months ended June 2017, a total of 29,315 cruise ship visitors came to Gisborne, which is an increase of 1446 from the previous year, 2016.

It is a 5 percent rise in numbers, not far below the 7 percent increase seen in Hawke's Bay and far better than the 7 percent fall in Bay of Plenty.

Adam Hughes also notified that the cruise arrival number over the two seasons has doubled and it is a story of great success in the tourism industry.

The cruise market is a key part of the Tairawhiti Gisborne visitor economy. The cruise business injects the expensive visitor spend into the region and brings to the doorstep (visitors) who otherwise would not have visited.

The quality of visitor practice delivered by the local communities is key and our community has stepped up from the tourism operators to the retailers and the invaluable volunteers that welcome serve and host our cruise arrival passengers.

The scheduled nature of the cruise tourism sector allows the tourism board of Gisborne to plan and prepare for each season and ship, with the next two seasons projected to be even more promising, bringing even more opportunity to our region.

The Tourism Board of Gisborne need to maximise the worth of the opportunities in cruise tourism, which is presenting and planning is well under way for the upcoming season, which begins on December 27.

Notably, New Zealand was visited by 222,000 unique cruise ship passengers in the year ended June 2017. That was down 7 percent from the June 2016 year. There are about three-quarters of passengers were aged between 50 and 80. For every 100 male passengers, there were 121 female passengers.

It is for the first time the official cruise ship statistics that show the number and characteristics of cruise ship passengers in New Zealand are being published. Half of all passengers were Australian citizens. United States citizens accounted for another 18 percent, United Kingdom citizens 9 percent, and New Zealand citizens 7 percent.