Cook Islands Tourism (CIT) have just released the insights report from the latest international Visitor Survey (IVS). Published quarterly, the IVS is an ongoing partnership between Cook Islands Tourism, Auckland University of Technology (AUT), and the Pacific Tourism Organisation (SPTO), with the latest insights covering international tourists who visited our shores between April and June this year.

The IVS results show improvements in several qualitative statistics including average length of stay (9.4 nights), average spend per visitor ($2,904), and overall satisfaction (92%). They also reconfirm New Zealanders (66%) as representing the bulk of visitors to our shores, but with encouraging signs of greater dispersal of our visitor markets with Australia (19%), North America (11%), and UK/Europe (2.6%) beginning to move closer towards pre-covid levels.

The results come at a pivotal time for the Cook Islands’ tourism sector, with increasing visitor arrivals driving post-covid economic recovery sooner than predicted, but looming concerns that ongoing tourism growth needs to be carefully managed. “Perpetual growth in terms of pure visitor numbers to the Cook Islands, and in particular Rarotonga, is simply not achievable, or desirable”, says CIT Director of Destination Development, Brad Kirner. “We’re currently performing well in both quantitative and qualitative performance measures, but there is a very fine balance we need to maintain between supply and demand to ensure our tourism offering is both optimised and sustainable. Of course we welcome industry input and discussion, but given our limited size and resources, a value (or yield) based approach to tourism development in our view is really the only option available from here”.

A full copy of the International Visitor Survey (April - June 2023) can be found on the Cook Islands Tourism corporate website LINK HERE.

For media inquiries and further information, please contact: Brad Kirner, Director of Destination Development, Cook Islands Tourism Corporation [email protected]