Bay of Plenty of less than $20,000, compared with 43.2% of people nationally. Unemployment was at 6.1% of people 15 years or older, compared with 5.1% nationally. The Bay of Plenty is a popular holiday destination due to the warm and sunny summer climate and public beaches. The Bay of Plenty received over 645,000 tourists in 2003, equivalent to one in three visitors to New Zealand coming to the region. Rotorua is a popular destination for international visitors, in particular the surrounding geothermal areas and Māori cultural centres. Tauranga is a popular domestic tourism destination, and also becoming popular internationally. Whale watching has
Bay of Plenty in the region struggled: the climate was ill-suited to sheep farming and the geography was inaccessible, further hindered by a lack of infrastructure. By the end of the century the population had started to dwindle. But after experimenting with different crops, settlers found success with dairy production. Dairy factories sprang up across the Bay of Plenty in the 1900s, with butter and cheese feeding economic prosperity throughout the early 20th century; local Māori continued to live on the fringe of this prosperity. Timber also became a major export in the 1950s, as kiwifruit did later. The present Bay of Plenty