Despite two quiet months in June and July, the accommodation industry has had a record number of guest nights in the August 2018 year. Hotels, motels and holiday park guest nights all had significant growth, with only backpackers dropping. Hotels had 14 million guest night in the year ending August 2018, a 3.6 percent increase from 2017. Holiday parks saw the biggest growth, increasing guest nights by 6.2 percent.
“Almost 40 million nights were spent at short-term commercial accommodation in New Zealand, in the year ended August,” said Melissa McKenzie, accommodation statistics manager, Stats NZ.
“Guest nights spent at hotels have than doubled in the past 20 years and are now the most popular type of accommodation."
While Christchurch, Queenstown-Lakes and Rotorua all saw strong growth, Auckland fell 1.4 percent from August year 2017, likely due to the British and Irish Lions Tour 2017 around that time period.
