The New Zealand tourism market has built momentum despite uneven market gains, delivering a strong month in November.
New Zealand’s hotel sector delivered one of its strongest months in several years in November 2025, according to Hotel Data New Zealand (HDNZ), with high occupancies and record average rates across the country, supported by solid international arrivals and standout event-driven demand in key centres.
Stats NZ reported 364,479 non New Zealand citizen arrivals in November, up eight percent on 2024 and about 94 percent of November 2019 levels. Arrivals grew across major markets, with visitors from Australia up 10 percent, China and the US each up seven percent, and other countries up five percent. Most of the increase came through Christchurch and Queenstown, while Auckland received circa 17 percent of the growth, supporting the stronger South Island hotel performance.
National hotel occupancy reached 83 percent in November, the highest since February 2020’s 87 percent. The average daily rate rose to NZD 255, the highest monthly level in a decade. RevPAR increased 3.8 percent year on year to its strongest point since February 2018, led by Queenstown, Christchurch, and Dunedin. Wellington and Hamilton were the only major markets to record a year on year decline. Nevertheless RevPAR for Auckland and Wellington hotels were still below November 2019 levels, highlighting the uneven recovery. Auckland hotels still delivered a strong result in November, with RevPAR up 1.3 percent year-on-year despite hosting fewer major concerts than last year November. Occupancy reached 83.9 percent, the highest level for November since 2019, while RevPAR of NZD 206 was the strongest since March 2023. Five-star hotels led performance with 86.8 percent occupancy, well ahead of three- to four-and-a-half-star properties and marking the segment’s best result since January 2020.
Special events supported Auckland’s performance. The Metallica concert at Eden Park on 19 November and the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education lifted occupancy and rates. According to STR, occupancy on the Metallica concert night peaked at 96 percent, with average daily rates about 63 percent higher than the same day a year earlier. The concert night boosted Auckland’s monthly RevPAR by roughly three percent. This compares with around 11 percent last year from November 2024’s one Pearl Jam and three Coldplay concerts.
Even excluding event days, performance remained firm, according to STR data, with RevPAR up about eight percent year-on-year, driven by a 6.3 percent rise in occupancy supported by wider demand factors. Cruise activity seems to have tempered overall demand. According to the New Zealand Cruise Association, November saw about 5,700 fewer cruise passengers than a year earlier, down roughly 30 percent due to four fewer ship calls. As Auckland serves as a key embarkation and disembarkation port, this reduction had a proportionally larger effect on hotel demand than in other markets.
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