It’s Thursday, and a quiet news morning carries one number worth sitting with, one campaign promise that now has a majority behind it, and one airline partnership that would redraw the Tasman. Three items, taken slowly. Here’s what’s moving.
August arrivals reach 99 percent of 2019, and China adds more visitors than Australia
Stats NZ counted 248,700 overseas visitor arrivals in August, up 18,400 or about 8 percent on August 2025, and 99 percent of the 251,100 who came in August 2019. The gap to pre-Covid is now 2,400 people for the month. China added the most, up 6,500 on a year earlier, which Tourism Minister Louise Upston put at a 32 percent rise. Australia was up 5,800 to 125,600, a record for any August, and now supplies 51 percent of all arrivals against 49 percent in 2019. Taiwan (5,800) and Singapore (4,600) also set August records. The United Kingdom was the only large market to go backwards, down 600.
The annual picture is 3.71 million arrivals in the year to August, up 307,000. Australia added 132,000 to reach 1.60 million and China added 81,000 to reach 327,000, so the two together account for 213,000 of the 307,000, or about 70 percent of the growth. ASB senior economist Mark Smith put that share at 85 percent in comments to Newstalk ZB; Stats NZ’s own annual figures do not get there, so treat the higher number with care. Smith’s other point stands on its own: the New Zealand dollar is near a 17-year low, which makes a New Zealand holiday noticeably cheaper in visitors’ own currencies.
The other side of the border is moving the opposite way. New Zealand residents made 254,500 return trips in August, 3,900 fewer than a year earlier, with drops from the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Australia and the United States. A weak dollar that flatters inbound tourism also keeps Kiwis at home, which is good news for domestic operators heading into summer. Upston set a goal last year of getting back to at least 2019 levels by the end of 2026. August is a winter month, and the real test is whether November to March clears 2019 too.
Stat of the day
99%
August's 248,700 overseas visitor arrivals as a share of August 2019's 251,100, leaving a gap of 2,400. (Stats NZ)
Source: Stats NZ, Minister for Tourism and Hospitality via Scoop, Newstalk ZB via NZCity
Four of six parties at the Queenstown finance debate say they would let councils set a bed tax
The bed tax arrived in Queenstown on Wednesday from two directions. Earlier in the day the Greens brought their policy to town: enabling legislation so councils can set their own levy on visitor accommodation, a higher rate allowed on Airbnbs and other short-term rentals, and a national register of short-term accommodation so every council can find them. Co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick said mayors “don’t care about central government politicians’ squabbles about whether a levy is a tax.”
In the evening, at the ASB Great Debate at the Queenstown Events Centre, moderator Jack Tame asked all six finance spokespeople directly. Labour’s Barbara Edmonds, Swarbrick and Opportunity’s Qiulae Wong all said yes, which means a Labour, Green and Opportunity government could pass the law change without anyone else. NZ First’s Shane Jones said yes too, saying the debate had become tedious and that Queenstown had been asking since Helen Clark was prime minister. ACT’s David Seymour argued a bed tax would take two years to set up and raise prices for every visitor, and that central government should pay councils a few dollars per guest night instead. National’s position is unchanged from its fiscal plan: no new taxes, and about $400 million from the International Visitor Levy shared with councils over four years by their share of international guest nights.
For accommodation providers the difference between the two models matters more than the label. National’s version is paid from a levy visitors already pay at the border, with nothing collected at the front desk. The Greens’ version is collected per night by the property, at a rate each council sets, and lands hardest on short-term rentals. With National and ACT the only parties opposed, how the next government forms will decide which one operators end up living with.
Source: NZ Herald, Green Party, RNZ
Air New Zealand asks to swap Qantas for Virgin Australia as its partner across the Tasman
Air New Zealand and Virgin Australia have applied to the Minister of Transport to expand their codeshare. If it is authorised, Virgin would become Air New Zealand’s main partner for flights within Australia, the two would codeshare on each other’s trans-Tasman services (Queenstown excluded), and Airpoints and Velocity members could earn and spend on both networks. Air New Zealand’s existing codeshare with Qantas ends on 7 April 2027. The two airlines already run a limited trans-Tasman codeshare, authorised in 2024 for five years to August 2029.
The application is open about its purpose. It argues that without closer ties neither airline can act as an effective competitive constraint on the Qantas Group, which has big operations in domestic Australia, across the Tasman and within New Zealand. Air New Zealand says about 90 percent of its customers travelling within Australia connect to places Virgin flies. For the trade, the practical change is the booking path: an Australian visitor flying Virgin from a regional city such as the Whitsundays or Byron Bay could be ticketed through to Air New Zealand’s domestic network on one itinerary. Queenstown stays outside the arrangement, as it did in the 2024 deal.
Source: NZ Herald
Coming up
- 15-16 October: Snow forecast on Porter Pass, Arthur’s Pass, SH7 east of Lewis Pass and the Mackenzie highways
- 19 October: Te Tapuwae o Rongokako marine reserve review survey closes
- 22 October: Waitākere Ranges Local Board votes on the future of Piha Beach Campground, and Lyttelton’s 2026-27 cruise season opens
- 25 October: The airlines’ summer scheduling season begins
- 26 October: Air New Zealand’s first Auckland to Western Sydney service
- 28 October: Reserve Bank OCR decision, and Air New Zealand’s first Christchurch to Singapore service
- 1 November: Backcountry Hut Tickets move to DOC’s online booking system
- 4 November: Tourism Summit Aotearoa and the NZ Tourism Awards, Te Pae Christchurch, and Stats NZ’s September quarter labour market figures
- 7 November: General election
- 11 December: SH7 Lewis Pass rebuild due to finish
- 7 April 2027: Air New Zealand’s codeshare with Qantas ends
That's today's briefing. The Shoulder Season is back every weekday morning.