Tourism And Business Events Research

Christchurch visitor spending has started to slowly recover from the impact of Covid 19. The total visitor spending has increased 9.6% or $83m in 2021 when compared to 2020. However, it has still not reached the level of spending achieved in 2019 before the pandemic. When compared to 2019, the total visitor spending in 2021 was lower by -5.13% or -$51m.

Christchurch proved itself to be a popular domestic visitor destination in most of 2021 except for August, thanks largely to a new vibrant central city, a strong major events portfolio and unprecedent domestic engagement with the regional tourism marketing campaign, ExploreCHC. Domestic visitor spending in Christchurch increased by 20.2% or $143m when compared to 2020 and by 19.7% or $140m when compared to 2019. There was a drop of -49.5% in domestic visitor spending in the month of August 2021 when compared to the previous month July 2021 is most likely due to the city moving to Alert level 4 again for 2 weeks.

The international visitor spending for 2021 decreased -37.8% or -$60m when compared to 2020 and -66.9% or -$199.2m when compared to 2019. The travel bubble with some regions of Australia in mid-2021 resulted in an increased visitor spending of 98% or $11.2m when compared to 2020. However, once the travel bubble was paused due to the Delta variant by end of July, the spending continued to slow down.