Market Report: New Zealand

Stephen Hamilton of Horwath HTL New Zealand has written the next in our series of Special Market Reports, focusing on New Zealand’s tourism and hotel market.

‘The performance of the New Zealand hotel industry is improving strongly, with record occupancies and room rates currently being achieved. The outlook for continuing growth in hotel demand is strong, especially in New Zealand’s main visitor destinations. There is a need for new hotel investment, especially in Auckland and Queenstown, and the various hotel projects which are under development and currently planned will not provide sufficient new rooms to meet expected demand. But, although room rates are rising reasonably strongly, New Zealand room rates are generally cheap by international standards, and not yet high enough to make most new hotel projects financially viable.‘