Queenstown continues to outperform New Zealand markets with a RevPAR gap of $55 over the next best market performer (Auckland), while Wellington sees moderate growth in RevPAR performance buoyed by room night demand growth.

Christchurch also has been able to grow both occupancy and ADR to achieve RevPAR growth of 7.9%.

NZ International Visitor Highlights

• Visitors up 8% to 3.7m for the year ending October 2017
• Visitor Nights up 6.3% to 16.9m for the year ending September 2017
• Of the top 10 international visitor markets Australia made up 39.7% of the total share of Visitors, with China following at 11.2%
• USA, UK, Germany, Korea, Canada and India displayed strong double digit growth in Visitors

NZ Domestic Visitor Highlights (Y/E September 2017)

• Visitor Nights slightly decreased to 22m (down 0.1%)
• Modest increase in Visitor Nights to the North Island (up 0.6%) while Visitor Nights moderately declined in respect to the South Island (down1.5%)
• Economic & Political Update New Zealand

New Zealand recorded moderate economic growth of 2.9% in Q4 2017, with the economy expected to grow 2.9% in 2018 and 2.6% in 2019 and the current RBNZ cash rate of 1.75% unlikely to move in 2018.

The new coalition governments challenge for 2018 will be its ability to work towards its proposed goals, such as reducing inequality, ending child poverty and acting on climate change, whist maintaining a strong and competitive economy.

Click here to view and download the full Savills Hotels Quarterly Update.

See also:

Auckland's $40m Federal Street Car Park sold to ICD a prime candidate for new hotel development

Auckland's 5-Star Pacifica hotel for sale

Five-star Horizon Hotel opening in Auckland next year

NZ outperforms Australia in hotel revenue growth