New insight shows holiday parks are key to growing tourism sustainably in the regions, says Holiday Parks Association Chief Executive Fergus Brown.

“Holiday parks provide a high percentage of guest nights in regions across the country, from Northland to Central Otago, and they have plenty of capacity to take more visitors.”

The new quarterly key insight infographic, produced for HPNZ by Angus & Associates, also reveals that guests staying at holiday parks contribute more than $1.1 billion annually in direct expenditure in local communities, supporting jobs and businesses.

The insight measures the health of the holiday park sector across a range of factors, including guest nights by region, community spend, demand by market (domestic and international), seasonality, and share of accommodation compared with hotels, motels and backpackers.

Key findings for the July 2018 quarter include:

• Regions where holiday parks capture the highest percentage of guest nights are Coromandel (59%), Central Otago (50%), Kapiti-Horowhenua (48%), Gisborne (44%) and Northland (40%).
• 21% of international and domestic visitor guest nights are spent in holiday parks (8.2 million), compared with 36% in hotels (14.2m), 31% in motels (12.4m) and 13% in backpackers (5.2m).
• While staying at holiday parks, guests contribute over $1.1 billion annually in direct expenditure to local communities ­­- approximately 53% from domestic travellers and 47% from international travellers.
• Domestic visitors tend to stay longer at a holiday park than international visitors, are more likely to be repeat visitors and middle aged, whereas international visitors tend to be younger and first time park visitors.
• Almost half of international holiday park guests are travelling in a campervan.
• 25% of international guests come from Australia, 16% from Germany and 15% from the UK.

Mr Brown says evidence supporting the value of holiday parks to local communities will be welcomed by the sector and is very timely, with over several hundred park people travelling to Hamilton this week for the annual Holiday Parks Conference and Awards (24 - 26 July).

Download the Holiday Parks - Key Insights, July 2018

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