Christchurch is one of 10 trending destinations for 2027 picked by online travel agency Booking.com. It’s the only New Zealand or Australian city on a list that also includes Reims in France, Sendai in Japan, Bratislava in Slovakia and Monterey in California.
The list is part of Booking.com’s 2027 Travel Predictions, published in October 2026. It isn’t a ranking.
Booking.com took the destinations in its top 1,000 most booked between 1 January and 30 June 2026, sorted them by year-on-year increase, then curated the list slightly to spread it around the world. It didn’t publish Christchurch’s growth figure.
Booking.com’s write-up leads on the rebuild. “Christchurch has done something remarkable: it turned devastation into design,” it says. After the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes, the city rebuilt with a renewed focus on architecture, public spaces and creative culture, the write-up says, and it points visitors to the Ōtākaro Avon River, Hagley Park, the Botanic Gardens and the Port Hills.
The airport and event numbers
The city’s airport and its economic development agency have their own numbers. Christchurch Airport handled 6.85 million passengers in the year to 30 June 2026, up 7.1%. International passengers rose 12.6% to 1.76 million, and domestic passengers rose 5.4% to 5.09 million.
The airport calls the coming season its biggest international summer yet. More than 1.27 million international seats are scheduled from November 2026 to March 2027, 21% more than last summer, with new Air New Zealand services to Singapore, Tokyo Narita and Perth.
Events are filling beds too. ChristchurchNZ says more than 157,000 people attended seven major events between mid-April and mid-June 2026, and 42% of them came from out of town. It estimates those events brought 133,385 bed nights and more than $31 million in visitor spending.
The new One New Zealand Stadium, which opened in 2026, hosted Super Round and its first concert in that stretch.
Booking.com also pitches the city as a base for getting out of it. Its consumer article suggests day trips to Mount Cook, Tekapo, Lake Pukaki and the Tasman Glacier, and closer to town, Birdlings Flat and Kaitorete Spit.
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