Travel by Kiwis in the past year is still running at record levels, Stats NZ figures show.
New Zealand-resident travel reached 3.09 million arrivals in the 12 months to Jul, an increase of 32,000 from the Jul 2025 year.
The biggest changes was in travel to Australia (up 45,000 to 1.29 million) while the United States continued to lose its lure (down 30,000 to 135,000).The 3.09 million travellers was a record for a Jul year, exceeding the previous record of 3.07 million in 2019.
There was also record travel for any year from some destinations including the Cook Islands (118,000), Vietnam (40,000), Tonga (30,000), and Sri Lanka (16,000). The 1.29 million New Zealand-resident travellers to Australia were a record for a July year from that country, exceeding the previous record of 1.25 million in July 2019.
. . . Jul Stats
For Jul, the number of Kiwis taking short trips totalled 317,000, down 5000 from Jul 2025.The biggest changes were arrivals from Samoa (up 1700), Cook Islands (up 1700),
Fiji (up 1200), Tonga (up 1000) and Australia (down 2900). The US was down 2300 while Britain, affected by conflict in the Middle East, was down 2700 on Jul 2025. But while those two markets have suffered, there was record travel for any month to the Cook Islands (14,300) and Indonesia (Bali, 14,300). There was also a new record travel for a Jul month to China (15,000), Samoa (9100), and India (5500).
