New Report reveals impact of campervan rentals to local tourism

A Report released today, led by Tourism Holdings Ltd (thl) and conducted by New Zealand’s leading tourism research firm Covec, reveals campervan tourism is responsible for almost half a billion dollars to the New Zealand tourism industry.

The Report is an output of the Economic Value of Tourism (EVT) project, a three year research programme funded by the Science and Innovation Group of the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.  It looks into the spending patterns and tourism behaviour of campervan tourists to New Zealand in 2011 and has revealed the sheer scale and value of both the international and domestic visitor spend  from this sector.1

According to the Report, international visitors hired 53,710 campervans during 2011, staying an average of 16.8 days and spending a total of $447.9 million in New Zealand.  Domestic residents hired a total of 10,220 campervans during the same period, staying an average of 8.9 days and spending a total of $38.1 million outside their home regions.2

Additionally, almost one million campervan hire days were generated in 2011 - split between international guests who generated 900,360 hire days and stayed in the country for an average of 19.7 nights; and domestic visitors who generated 90,820 hire days and had an average trip length of 9.1 nights away from home.

thl’s  Chief Executive Officer, Grant Webster said: “the sheer magnitude of the economic value to tourism created by campervan tourists travelling in New Zealand is phenomenal and the spread of that economic value goes deep within our communities.”

“Campervan tourists spend on items including campsite fees, fuel, attractions and activities and retail as you would expect.  They also spend on other accommodation, transport, groceries, food and beverage in cafes, bars and restaurants, during the campervan rental period, clearly illustrating the value of this sector to community businesses not directly associated with tourism”.

On average, international campervan occupants spent a total of $3,836 per adult in New Zealand and domestic campervan occupants spent a total of $1,787 per adult over their entire trip excluding international airfares.

Grant Webster says: “As New Zealand’s largest campervan rental operator, thl was a major contributor to the Report’s results.  Whist the recent MBIE forecast published last week showed strong growth from emerging markets, this report has reinforced the importance of continued investment in our key source markets - Germany, The Netherlands, United Kingdom and Australia given the economic value these visitors bring during their stay. ”

“As a country we should embrace the opportunity to increase visitation from all markets and China is going to be great for volume. The challenge is on average they appear to be spending $2,542 per visit which is one third less than the average international campervan customer.  They are also only visiting an average of 2.5 regions while campervan customers are visiting an average of 8.2.”

“We need to be sure as a country we are not creating a self-fulfilling prophecy when people  say there is a structural shift away from traditional markets, particularly when the data shows that demand for long haul travel out of these markets is starting to recover.  The energy should remain focussed on those who spend the most, stay the longest and visit the regions as well as cities.”

The Report’s analysis is based on a sample of 1719 responses to an online survey of campervan hirers, with results adjusted to exclude the impact of Rugby World Cup 2011 on expenditure and travel patterns.

International  traveller responses to the survey were split as follows:  Australia 32%, United Kingdom 14%, Germany 5%, The Netherlands 3%, Other Europe 9%, Americas 5%, Other Countries 8%. Domestic traveller responses made up 24 percent of survey respondents