The biggest Eftpos card firm says food and alcohol sales continue to rise, against the trend of other transactions.
Paymark, which processes more than threequarters of all in-store electronic transactions in New Zealand, handled about $3.5 billion worth of sales last month.
Its chief executive, Simon Tong, says that compared with March last year travel-related transactions dropped by 14% and accommodation sales by 8%.
Food and alcohol transactions, however, rose by 9.9%.
But the drop in travel-related sales is significant, Mr Tong says, and clear evidence of a change in spending patterns.
