Tourism - Cruise ship travellers by direction and traveller type 2015–2020

Unique arrivals and departures: Travellers are counted only once each June year based on unique passport numbers.
Total unique passengers/crew: Travellers are counted only once each June year based on unique passport numbers. This equates to unique arrivals plus unique departures, minus duplicates (so travellers who appear in both arrivals and departures are counted only once). Travellers identified as both crew and passengers are counted as crew only.

The ‘unique passengers’ total is a count of each cruise ship passenger once only over the year, based on unique passport number. This reflects that a passenger can appear as an arrival, a departure, or both, and ensures a cruise ship passenger is counted only once over the year. It takes into account those who completed part of their journey into or out of New Zealand by air.

Visits to a port do not necessarily mean passengers disembarked and spent money locally. For example, most passengers visiting Fiordland do not disembark, although sometimes an overland connection between Fiordland and Dunedin is available.

Domestic cruises within New Zealand waters are excluded from the statistics. Estimates for international passengers and crew airfares are currently not included, neither are cruise expenditure by domestic passengers (New Zealand passport holders).

At URL provided, download the 'Cruise ship traveller and expenditure statistics: Year ended June 2020' Excel file.

Cruise ship traveller and expenditure statistics include the number, characteristics, and expenditure of cruise ship travellers, including passengers and crew, and region/port statistics.

About three-quarters of cruise ship passengers visiting New Zealand are transit passengers. Transit passengers who do not complete border clearance are not included in International Travel and Migration statistics. This data collection measures the volume and contribution of travellers that would otherwise be only partially captured by other official statistics.

Cruise ship traveller and expenditure statistics are reported on a year ended June basis to best align with the cruise season.
Cruise ship traveller statistics are based on ‘advanced passenger information’ supplied by cruise ship crew to Customs NZ under the Customs and Excise Act 1996. The statistics are dependent on the quality of this information together with the ship schedule supplied by the New Zealand Cruise Association to the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. Revisions to port statistics reflect the combined impact of improvements to card transaction expenditure source data and the refinement of cruise related data from providers.