For the year ended December 2017, record number arrivals and departures of both foreign visitors and New Zealand Residents were seen in the country, Stats NZ said on 2 February.
In the 2017 calendar year, 3.73 million foreign visitors arrived in New Zealand, an increase of 6.7 percent compared to 2016. Only slightly more than half of these foreigners were on a holiday, while 30 percent came to New Zealand to visit family and friends.
Peter Dolan, population statistics senior manager, was quoted by Statistics New Zealand as saying that the record number of foreign arrivals in the Australasian country in 2017 was almost equivalent to the total resident population of the North Island as per 30 June 2017. He said that the number of foreigners arriving annually has been on the rise since mid-2013.
On the other hand, a record 2.9 million foreign trips were undertaken by New Zealand residents in 2017, a rise of 9.3 percent compared to 2016. Nationals of New Zealand holidaying abroad comprised 44 percent of all departures from the country.
The top source destination for travellers for New Zealanders in 2017 was Australia, which was also the country from where the largest number of visitors came to New Zealand during the same year.
On the other hand, China was the second highest source of travellers to New Zealand.
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