Economics

Southland’s tourism sector has helped push it to the top of ASB’s regional economic scoreboard for the third quarter.

Tourism has helped drive NZ’s two-way trade of goods and services through the $160bn mark for the first time.

A strong global trend for more consumer dollars to be spent on tourism will help offset looming headwinds for the NZ sector, according to Westpac.

Spending by international visitors helped push New Zealand’s goods and services trade surplus up to $4.2bn for the June 2018 year, up $375 million from the previous year. 

Services exports such as tourism have become the country’s “quiet achievers”, says the bank.

New Zealand’s current account deficit narrowed to $1.6 billion in the June 2017 quarter, driven by $3.7 billion worth of spending by visitors from overseas.