Data from Stats NZ shows that international visitors travelling to attend conferences in New Zealand during May 2026 numbered 4,916, up 15.4 per cent on international conference delegates in May 2025. For the year ending May 2026, the number of international conference attendees was 15.9 per cent higher than the year prior.
Meanwhile, data from the Business Events Data Programme for the April to June quarter shows a rise in both single day and multi-day conferences held in New Zealand, with single day conferences rising by 18 per cent compared to the previous year and multi-day conferences rising by nine per cent, for an overall increase in the number of events of 15 per cent.
The number of delegates at business events in New Zealand was also up, by seven per cent or nearly 14,000 delegates.
The last three quarters of data from the Business Events Data Programme evidence a significant turnaround for the New Zealand industry, with event and delegate metrics falling for the previous eight quarters, prior to December 2025 quarter.
However, according to the Stats NZ data, international conference arrivals are still below what they were in May 2019, with New Zealand proportionally welcoming 82 per cent of May 2019 conference delegates in the same month of 2026.
Looking at the figures for the year to May 2026, recovery to pre-pandemic levels of international delegates is a little better, with international conference attendees sitting at 89 per cent of what they were at the same point in 2019.
Looking at international arrivals to New Zealand more broadly, international travellers to the country in May 2026 were 93 per cent of the same month in 2019.
