China will be New Zealand's largest market for tourist spending by next year and will be the fastest growing market in terms of visitor numbers, according to an official forecast out Thursday.
Total tourism expenditure is forecast to grow by 65 percent to 16 billion NZ dollars (10.92 billion U.S. dollars) in 2022, according to the forecast from 2016 to 2022 from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
Meanwhile, total visitor arrivals to New Zealand were expected to grow 5.4 percent a year, reaching 4.5 million visitors in 2022 from 3.1 million in 2015, said the report.
"In terms of absolute volume, Australia will remain New Zealand's largest market for arrivals over the forecast period, but growth in visitors from China outstrips all other markets," said the report.
China, currently the second largest tourism market after Australia in terms of visitor numbers, "will be New Zealand's largest market for spend in 2017, as well as the fastest-growing," it added.
In 2015, total spend by Chinese visitors grew 62.7 percent to 1.67 billion NZ dollars (1.14 billion U.S. dollars), while arrivals were up 34.3 percent to 356,000.
Chinese visitor numbers were forecast to rise by 159 percent to 921,000 in 2022 and their total spend was expected to rise by 219 percent to 5.32 billion NZ dollars (3.63 billion U.S. dollars).
MBIE general manager evidence, monitoring and governance, Michael Bird, said visitor spending was increasingly "contributing to the bottom line" although visitor numbers still played a role.
"We are already seeing a marked change in the travel patterns of Chinese visitors. They are visiting more regions in New Zealand, and taking on a wider range of activities," Bird said in a statement.
Tourism overtook dairy as the country's biggest export earner last year.
