External Migration June 2004

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Commentary ...

• Visitor arrivals

There were 134,800 short-term overseas visitor arrivals to New Zealand in June 2004, up 22,800 or 20 percent on June 2003.

Seasonally adjusted monthly visitor arrivals rose by 3 percent in June 2004, following a fall of 1 percent in May 2004.

In the June 2004 quarter, visitor arrivals totalled 451,900, an increase of 86,800 (24 percent) over the June 2003 quarter total of 365,100. This resulted from increases in April (up 34,000), May (up 30,000) and June (up 22,800), when compared with the same months in 2003. However, visitor numbers in the June 2003 quarter were lower than expected due to concerns surrounding the outbreak of the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) virus. Compared with the June 2002 quarter, visitor arrivals increased in the June 2004 quarter by 74,600 (up 20 percent).

Annual Visitor Arrivals June year 1995–2004

Visitor Arrivals by Reason for Travel Year ended June 2004

During the year ended June 2004, there were 2.250 million visitor arrivals, up 199,900 (10 percent) on the June 2003 year. Holidaymakers accounted for 51 percent (1,151,300) of the overseas visitors.

(Note: Provisional weekly and four-weekly visitor arrivals data is available on the Statistics New Zealand website: www.stats.govt.nz. This data is updated each week with the most recently available information on visitor arrivals from the 10 major source countries.)

• Visitors by source country

In June 2004, there were more visitors from Australia (up 11,800 or 27 percent), Japan (up 3,600 or 82 percent), and China (up 3,100 or 184 percent) compared with June 2003. Visitor arrivals from countries in Asia dropped from 30,600 in June 2002 to 22,800 in June 2003, as a response to the SARS virus. They returned to the 2002 level in June 2004 (30,700).

Visitors from China Month of June

Visitors from Australia Month of June

In the year ended June 2004, when compared with the June 2003 year, there were more visitors from all the major regions, with increases ranging from less than 3 percent (Americas) to 17 percent (Oceania). Australia (up 126,700 or 19 percent) provided the largest annual increase in visitors from an individual country. Other countries with increased visitor arrivals for the June 2004 year include the United Kingdom (up 28,400 or 11 percent), Korea (up 7,200 or 6 percent), Malaysia (up 5,500 or 27 percent) and the United States (up 5,000 or 2 percent). However, there were fewer visitors from Taiwan (down 2,600 or 9 percent), Japan (down 2,500 or 2 percent) and Italy (down 2,000 or 23 percent) in the June 2004 year.

(Note: Detailed visitor data is available in the June 2004 edition of the Statistics New Zealand report Tourism – International Visitor Arrivals, which can be ordered via the Statistics New Zealand website: www.stats.govt.nz)

• New Zealand resident departures

New Zealand residents departed on 169,000 short-term overseas trips in June 2004, an increase of 47,100 (39 percent) on June 2003. This is the first time that monthly departures have exceeded 150,000.

In June 2004, New Zealand residents went on more trips to Australia (up 16,000 or 27 percent), China (up 3,400 or 199 percent), Fiji (up 3,000 or 37 percent), the United States (up 2,700 or 42 percent) and the United Kingdom (up 2,400 or 29 percent). In June 2004, New Zealand resident departures to Asia (19,300) were up 8,700 (82 percent) on June 2003. New Zealand resident departures to many countries in Asia were much lower in June 2003, compared with June 2002, because of the impact the SARS virus had on travel.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, New Zealand resident departures increased by 2 percent between May and June 2004, after decreasing by 3 percent between April and May 2004.

In the June 2004 quarter, resident departures totalled 449,900, an increase of 114,300 (34 percent) over the June 2003 quarter total of 335,500.

In the year ended June 2004, resident departures totalled 1.548 million, up 269,800 (21 percent) on the previous June year. There were more trips to Australia (up 134,400 or 20 percent), Fiji (up 16,400 or 25 percent), China (up 14,600 or 54 percent), the United States (up 10,200 or 16 percent), the United Kingdom (up 9,500 or 15 percent), Thailand (up 4,300 or 28 percent) and India (up 4,400 or 45 percent).

Holidaymakers accounted for 44 percent (677,300) of the resident departures during the June 2004 year.

Annual Resident Departures June year 1995–2004

Resident Departures by Reason Year ended June 2004

(Note: Provisional weekly and four-weekly resident departures data is available on the Statistics New Zealand website: www.stats.govt.nz. This data is updated each week with the most recently available information on resident departures to the 10 major destinations.)

• Permanent and long-term migration

Permanent and long-term (PLT) arrivals include people who arrive in New Zealand intending to stay for a period of 12 months or more (or permanently), plus New Zealand residents returning after an absence of 12 months or more. Included in the former group are people with New Zealand residency as well as students and holders of work permits. Permanent and long-term departures include New Zealand residents departing for an intended period of 12 months or more (or permanently), plus overseas visitors departing from New Zealand after a stay of 12 months or more.

PLT departures exceeded arrivals by 100 in June 2004, compared with an excess of 1,900 PLT arrivals over departures in June 2003. The June 2004 net PLT outflow can be attributed to 900 fewer PLT arrivals and 1,100 more PLT departures. The main reason for the drop in PLT arrivals was a fall in non-New Zealand citizen arrivals (down 600). PLT arrivals have now dropped in each of the past 16 months when compared with the same month a year earlier, while PLT departures have increased in each of the past 11 months. As a result, the net PLT figure has decreased in each of the past 13 months.

In June 2004, there were net inflows from the United Kingdom (300) and India (200), but a net outflow to Australia (1,200).

The seasonally adjusted series recorded a net PLT inflow of 800 in June 2004, down from 1,400 in May 2004.
In the year ended June 2004, there were 84,300 PLT arrivals, down 13,000 (13 percent) on the June 2003 year. Over the same period, PLT departures increased by 7,600 (14 percent) to reach 62,300. The overall result was a net migration gain of 22,000 in the June 2004 year. This is 48 percent lower than the net inflow of 42,500 people in the previous June year. Compared with the June 2003 year, there were 400 fewer New Zealand citizen arrivals, and 3,200 more New Zealand citizen departures. Non-New Zealand citizen arrivals were down 12,600 and non-New Zealand citizen departures were up 4,400.

In the year ended June 2004, there was a net PLT inflow of 9,400 from the United Kingdom, up 12 percent on the June 2003 year figure (8,500). There was also a net inflow from China of 5,600, down from a net inflow of 14,800 in the June 2003 year. Overall, net PLT inflow from Asia has reduced considerably, from 31,000 in the June 2003 year, to 14,400 in the June 2004 year. Conversely, there was a net outflow to Australia of 12,400 in the June 2004 year.

Annual PLT Migration June 1994–2004

Annual Net PLT Migration June 1994–2004

Over the past decade, annual PLT arrivals peaked in July 1996 (82,000) before dropping over the next three years to 56,300 in June 1999. Arrivals then increased to reach an all-time high of 98,700 in the year ended February 2003. Since then, annual PLT arrivals have gradually dropped to 84,300 in June 2004. Over the same period, annual PLT departures rose steadily to reach a peak of 79,300 in May 2001 before falling to 54,700 in July 2003, and then rising to 62,300 in June 2004.

As a result of the changes in annual PLT arrivals and departures, annual net PLT migration has fluctuated significantly. After reaching a high of 30,200 in April 1996, there were reducing net inflows over the next two years and then net outflows between 1998 and 2001. Following the net loss of 13,200 in the February 2001 year, there was a change in the direction of the net flow during 2001, followed by a rapid increase to a peak of 42,500 in the May 2003 year. The annual net PLT migration had dropped 20,500 by June 2004, to 22,000.

Statistics New Zealand began separately identifying permanent arrivals from long-term arrivals in July 2003 (departing migrants are also separately identified). Within the long-term group, a further distinction is made between overseas visitors coming to stay in New Zealand for 12 months or more (long-term overseas visitors) and New Zealand residents returning after an overseas stay of 12 months or more (long-term New Zealand residents).

The classification of a person as a permanent or long-term migrant depends on their responses to the questions on the arrival and departure cards. Both cards require completion of one of two sections, dependent on whether or not the person feels that they live or have lived in New Zealand. The choice of which section to complete is up to the individual, and the answer may result in a person being misclassified – usually as a permanent migrant instead of a long-term migrant.

Of the 5,200 PLT arrivals in June 2004, there were 1,900 permanent migrants, and 2,200 long-term visitors. A further 1,100 arrivals were classed as long-term New Zealand residents. For more information on the separate identification of permanent and long-term migrants, including data quality issues, see the External Migration: September 2003 Hot Off The Press.

• Tourism and Migration 2003

Tourism and Migration 2003 is a recently released annual update of a number of the tables contained in the Tourism and Migration 2000 reference report. The update contains statistics on a December year basis up to 2003 on a range of topics, but does not include commentary or analysis. Tables include overseas visitors, overseas trips by New Zealanders, tourist expenditure, permanent and long-term migration, immigration permits, New Zealand's migrant population and internal migration.

• New migration processing system

Introduction
Since 1 September 1997, the New Zealand Customs Service (NZCS) has been supplying Statistics New Zealand with electronic data for all international arrivals and departures on a daily basis, in addition to providing all arrival and departure cards. The electronic information includes details about each flight (airline, route, etc) and, for each passenger on the flight, the passport number, nationality, sex, and date of birth. This data is receipted automatically by Statistics New Zealand.

Also in September 1997, Statistics New Zealand began using a system for processing the migration cards based on the electronic records from NZCS. For each flight, this involved keying in the passport number of each passenger, bringing up their electronic record and, if required for the migration sample, capturing further information from the card. The annual number of cards processed using this system increased from 5.3 million in the August 1998 year to over 7.6 million in the May 2004 year, with a resultant increase in the resources required for processing.

New system
To capture survey information more efficiently, Statistics New Zealand is developing new processing systems which incorporate scanning and image recognition technology. A new migration processing system using this technology was used to process all the arrival and departure cards for June 2004. This system removes the need to key in the passport number for each traveller. In addition, classing (as overseas visitors, New Zealand residents, or permanent and long-term (PLT) migrants), and capture of the information required for the migration sample, are done automatically for the majority of the cards. Those cards that cannot be classed (or are classed as PLT), and those that have fields that cannot be recognised, are manually processed using the card image which is linked to the electronic record from NZCS. It is expected that operator intervention should only be required for approximately one-quarter of the cards. The new system, designed to capture the same information as previously captured, is used only for the production of statistics.

Data consistency
As part of testing, cards for November 2003 and February 2004 were re-processed using a beta version of the new system so that results could be compared, as far as was practicable, with those from the existing system. For some variables, differences between the two systems were to be expected because the comparisons involved different data samples. In other cases, the testing highlighted processing changes that were then incorporated into the current version of the new system, to ensure greater consistency of results.

Based on the testing, it is expected that data captured using the new system will be largely consistent with previous data. There were some differences in the length of stay/absence distributions and average length of stay/absence between the two migration systems, although it should be noted that this field is sampled only. Investigation found no evidence of any factor related to the new system, such as misrecognition, that was a major contributor to the differences. For short-term New Zealand resident departures, there were more people leaving for more than 50 days, which contributed to a length of absence almost one day higher for February 2004. For overseas visitors, there was almost no difference in the average length of stay but there were some differences in the length of stay distribution. These were generally consistent with differences recorded for residents, apart from more people staying for 1–7 days.

There are some minor misrecognition and miscoding issues with the country of birth, country of last/next permanent residence, and country of main destination fields but a check program is used to identify any doubtful records so that these can be corrected.

There will possibly be improvements for some fields because there will be fewer, and more experienced, coders involved with processing. The quality of coding for territorial authorities in the Auckland Region noticeably improved during testing. Fewer people were coded to Auckland City and more were coded to other territorial authorities within the Region. There should also be more consistency in the coding of occupation.

Users need to be aware of the processing system changes when comparing data for June 2004 onwards with data for earlier periods.

For technical information contact:
Ian Richards or David Lowrie
Christchurch 03 964 8700
Email: info@stats.govt.nz