Visitor spending shaken by Kaikoura earthquake

The Kaikoura earthquake caused a $16 million drop in tourism spending in the three weeks immediately after the disaster.

Monthly regional tourism estimates released yesterday by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) showed the November 14 earthquake had a limited overall impact on national tourism spending.

MBIE’S manager of sector trends, Peter Ellis, said data for December due out later this month would give a clearer indication of the full impact of the earthquake on regional economies.

In November North Canterbury tourism spending fell 20 per cent, although visitor spending for the whole of Canterbury was up slightly for the month, and up 8 per cent to $3.4 billion for the year.

An estimated loss to North Canterbury of about $16m in visitor spending over the three weeks after the earthquake was largely due to increased travel times and perceptions about whether the region was open for business.

‘‘What we think happened is that international visitors stopped spending in Kaikoura and spent elsewhere, whereas domestic visitors cancelled travel altogether,’’ Ellis said.

About 70 per cent of international tourist spending is via credit card and analysis of that data illustrated the devastating impact on Kaikoura.

In 2015 for the week of November 14, overseas visitors spent $568,000 in the Kaikoura district.

In the same week the following year, overseas visitor spending hit negative figures as cancellations led to refunds for prepaid accommodation and activities, Ellis said.

Although international visitor spending in Kaikoura increased marginally in early December, it was still well below the same period in previous years.

Other affected areas such as Hanmer Springs had recovered, with overseas patronage returning to expected levels and domestic visitors back to about 70 per cent to 80 per cent of normal levels, Ellis said.

Spending on the West Coast was up 30 per cent to 40 per cent over the three weeks immediately after the quake, as it benefited from becoming an alternative traffic route when State Highway 1 was closed by slips.

Nationally the biggest rise in visitor spending over the year to November was in Nelson, which increased 15 per cent to $337m, followed by Otago (up 14 per cent to $3.5b) and the West Coast (up 11 per cent to $475m).