Taranaki regional profiles

Venture Taranaki partners with data specialists Infometrics to provide detailed data about the Taranaki region. Find information about:

  • Economy
  • Employment
  • Productivity
  • Population
  • Businesses
  • Standard of living
  • Skills
  • Tourism
  • Wellbeing

You can also filter by district, community, and by rural and urban areas.

GDP per capita

Taranaki has the third highest GDP per capita in New Zealand.

In 2021, Taranaki’s total GDP fell 5.8 percent, mostly driven by its largest industry, oil and gas production, which was affected by lower global prices for energy products and reduced operations.

GDP per capita in Taranaki is still significantly higher than the national average of $63,995.

Source: Stats NZ

Taranaki GDP per capita

$70,626 -6.9% year to end March 2021

NZ average GDP per capita

$63,955 -0.5% year to end March 2021
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Unemployment rates - regional comparison

Consumer Spend

Electronic card consumer spending in Taranaki Region as measured by Marketview, increased by 9.8% over the year to September 2022, compared to a year earlier. This compares with an increase of 7.0% in New Zealand.

Source: Infometrics Quarterly Economic Monitor

Annual spend over the year to Sep 2022

$1,677 M +9.8% since STLY

Visitor spend

Visitor spend is now broadly calculated using Tourism Electronic Card Transactions (TECTs). The TECTs are an interim replacement to Monthly Regional Tourism Estimates (MRTEs) that provide insights into monthly tourism spend. 

The MRTE series was disrupted by COVID-19, as the methodology for weighting the measured electronic card transaction spend up to the whole of industry spend became unusable.   

The TECTs instead aim to present the measured electronic card transactions (ECT) attributable to tourism but without any attempt to represent the total spend. This method is considered to be the best way to provide spend data to the industry while travel is severely affected by COVID-19 border restrictions. Users need to be aware of the limitations of this approach.      

They represent card spending only. 

The TECTS represent part of total tourism spend as they are based almost exclusively on physical electronic card transactions, and do not include any other form of spending such as cash, pre-purchases, or online spend. 

Source: MBIE Tourism and Electronic Card Transactions 

Taranaki visitor spend to October 2022

$271m +10.9%

New Plymouth visitor spend to October 2022

$215m +10.2%

South Taranaki visitor spend to October 2022

$40m +11.8%

Stratford District visitor spend to October 2022

$15m +19.2%

Guest nights

Guest nights in Taranaki had a slight increase to 71.5K in October 2022 compared to the same month last year of 44.5K. Average guest nights stayed was 2.2.

Of these guest nights, 57,100 were in the New Plymouth district, 6,600 in the Stratford district, and 7,800 in the South Taranaki district.

Source: Accommodation Data Programme 

Total Taranaki Guest Nights

71,500 October 2022

Average nights per guest

2.20 October 2022

Median House Price

November saw an increase in activity from retirees, likely due to the greater variety of homes on the market, the improvement of the weather, and the completion of several elderly living complexes in the region. There was also strong enquiry from buyers outside of Taranaki.

Full Report

Source: REINZ, QVNZ and RBNZ

Taranaki Region

$620K in November 2022, -1.0% compared STLY
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Taranaki Trends

Taranaki Trends is a bi-annual publication covering a wide range of national and regional measures, to enable Taranaki businesses and researchers to find key information and make informed decisions.

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Business Survey

The Taranaki Business Survey is a bi-annual business confidence survey, which goes out to a range of enterprises of different sizes and sectors.

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Search for reports

Browse Venture Taranaki's library of published data, including special projects and commissioned reports.