Kia ora THE
The heart of what we do at TNZ is simple: inspiring people to take the trip of a lifetime to New Zealand. In the last year, 3.7m people have made that trip.
Alongside all of you across the tourism sector, we have achieved our aspiration for international visitors to reach this milestone. For the year ended June 2026, international visitor arrivals reached 3.7 million, up 9% on the previous year and around 94% of pre-COVID levels. The arrivals growth rate has almost doubled from 5% a year ago, off a larger base.
New Zealand welcomed 201,000 overseas visitor arrivals for the month of June, up 13,000 on June 2025.
This momentum reflects the collective work underway across the tourism sector to convert demand, strengthen our appeal in key markets and help visitors choose New Zealand with confidence. It is encouraging to see growth from several key markets, including China and Australia.
TNZ are firmly focused on reaching our target of 3.9m visitors by the end of 2027, with several pieces of activity launching in market the coming months to drive near term arrivals. Watch this space.
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AI tools are becoming a key part of the travel planning journey, from inspiration and comparison through to itinerary building. For New Zealand, that means it’s important we make sure our destination, experiences and tourism businesses remain visible, accurate and easy to find in the places visitors are now searching.
To support this, in July Tourism New Zealand delivered a series of practical AI discoverability workshops with industry, held in Auckland, Rotorua, Queenstown, Christchurch and online. The sessions focused on how AI-assisted search and recommendations are changing travel discovery, and the practical steps operators can take now to make their products easier for visitors and AI tools to find, understand and recommend.
The workshops were supported by a new AI discoverability guidebook for industry, which brings together simple actions operators can take to improve their discoverability. Download it here.
Additionally, TNZ has received $800,000 in funding through the International Visitor Levy to support New Zealand’s visibility in AI-powered travel planning. The funding will help improve the way tourism business and destination information is organised and presented on our Tourism Business Database, so AI tools can more easily access and use accurate content. The funding will also support the expansion of Tourism New Zealand’s AI travel assistant with more regional content, helping visitors discover more of New Zealand, travel more widely and connect with tourism businesses across the country.
TNZ will be hosting an online AI collective forum for tourism operators to continue to share and learn in mid-September. Invitations will be sent soon.
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Offshore, our recent Kiwi Link events in India and Southeast Asia at the end of July are an important part of how we convert growing demand into future visitation for New Zealand. In India, 49 New Zealand tourism businesses met with 75 leading travel buyers in Goa, strengthening trade relationships and destination knowledge in one of our priority growth markets. In Southeast Asia, our industry delegation engaged with 46 buyers from Singapore and emerging markets Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. These connections help ensure sellers are confident and well equipped to promote New Zealand, support year-round travel, and convert interest into bookings. Read more about the events here.
We also welcome the commitment of $500,000 from the International Conservation and Tourism Visitor Levy (IVL) announced this week. This will be used to expand the Tiaki – Care for New Zealand programme, which encourages visitors to care for people, place and culture while travelling in our country.
Tourism New Zealand and Tourism Industry Aotearoa will coordinate the programme with the Tiaki Te Kāhui Tautiaki (governance group), with the funding supporting a range of Tiaki initiatives ahead of the summer visitor season - including visitor education, website improvements, industry training and signage.
Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn if you’re keen to receive more frequent updates on our activity, industry news and more. As always, please reach out if you have any questions.
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