New Zealand welcomed 273,000 overseas visitors in September, 4% above the previous September record of 261,800 set in 2019. Annual arrivals reached 3.74 million, up 309,800 or 9% on the year before. For one of the country’s biggest export earners, that is a clean, unambiguous win.
It also moves the problem. For three years the industry’s worry was getting visitors back. Now they are back, and the constraint shifts to the supply side, where the workforce pipeline spent the same period shrinking.
China has stopped going backwards
The standout is China. Arrivals from the market rose by 12,800 in the September month to 33,100, and annual arrivals climbed 38% to 340,100. Australia, still the anchor at 143,700 arrivals for the month and 1.61 million for the year, combined with China to drive almost three-quarters of the annual increase. US arrivals hit a record annual high of 390,100.
Tourism New Zealand chief executive René de Monchy says the agency is “pleased by the results overall, but particularly the Chinese market”, adding that “there’s been a real turnaround, as a year ago it wasn’t growing particularly well.”
That undersells how bad it was. In 2025, the NZ Herald’s Mood of the Boardroom reported Chinese travel running at just 55% of 2018 levels, conference travel down 81% and visa fee increases adding roughly $500 to a trip before a ticket was bought. Airlines had cut capacity in response. A 38% jump is real growth, but it comes off a deeply depressed base. Operators should read it as a market recovering, not a market that has recovered.
The momentum is holding. Provisional data shows 262,780 arrivals in the four weeks to 18 October, up 10.2% on the same period last year. Summer will be busy.
The training pipeline quietly collapsed
Here is the part that should worry anyone running a lodge, a restaurant or a shuttle fleet. A 2025 analysis published in The Conversation found tourism-related course enrolments fell 63% between 2015 and 2024, from 3,750 to 1,355. Hospitality enrolments fell 73%, from 915 to 250. The authors warned at the time that New Zealand had “a crisis in the making”, with continued decline meaning “overworked staff, poorer service, and businesses forced to reduce hours or close altogether.”
Those are not people who can be conjured in a season. Managers, chefs and experienced guides take years to develop, and the cohort that should be stepping into those roles now largely never enrolled. The fallback is short-term and migrant labour, which works until immigration settings, competition from Australia or housing in tourist towns gets in the way.
We have seen this movie before
The 2022 border reopening offered a preview. RNZ reported in October 2022 that one Franz Josef operator had closed two of three hospitality businesses, with staffing down from 120 to under 20. Scenic Hotel Group, under then-chief executive Karl Luxon, needed close to 140 extra staff just to reopen three hotels. Demand turned up. Revenue did not, because nobody was there to serve it.
The situation in 2026 is not that extreme, and there is no current data suggesting it is. But the dynamic is the same, and the cushion of reduced visitor numbers that masked thin staffing has now gone.
Planes are the other bottleneck
Labour is not the only ceiling. In 2025, the Herald reported international capacity into Auckland running at just over 92% of 2019 levels and largely plateaued, with each daily widebody long-haul service estimated to be worth about $150 million in tourism spend. Seat capacity is decided in airline boardrooms in Sydney, Shanghai and Dallas, not Wellington. Regions outside Auckland and Queenstown are the most exposed if growth stalls.
Volume is not the same as margin
For operators, the record is a starting point, not a result. As BDO’s tourism advisers have framed the broader issue, the test is whether extra bookings convert into cash flow and profit, and a surge can quickly strain staffing, systems and service delivery. Chasing volume without the people to deliver it means discounted rooms, closed kitchens on Mondays and one-star reviews that cost next year’s bookings.
The businesses that win this summer will be the ones that locked in staff early, priced for scarcity rather than occupancy, and invested in systems that let fewer people do more. The longer-term fix belongs to the industry itself: rebuilding tourism and hospitality as a credible career rather than a gap-year job. The visitors have done their part. The next record depends on whether anyone is there to greet them.
Sources
- Stats NZ: International travel: September 2026 (2026-11-12)
- Stats NZ: Visitor arrivals exceed 3.7 million in September (2026-11-12)
- Stats NZ: International travel (provisional) (2026-11-11)
- Newstalk ZB: “Real turnaround”: Tourism NZ pleased with significant rebound in Chinese market (2026-11-13)
- NZ Herald: Mood of the Boardroom: China travel downturn puts New Zealand tourism recovery at risk (2025-09-30)
- NZ Herald: Mood of the Boardroom: Tourism growth faces hurdles as Auckland Airport warns on flight capacity (2025-09-27)
- The Conversation: A looming workforce crisis in NZ tourism and hospitality threatens industry growth plans (2025-05-12)
- RNZ: Glacier towns frozen by lack of staffing, capacity as tourists return (2022-10-03)
- BDO: Tourism demand is returning: Is your business ready for peak season?
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