NZ is in urgent need of foreign tourists

Saturday, February 12, 2022

Before March 2020, in New Zealand, international tourism was the largest foreign exchange earner. The 3.8 million international visitors added $17 billion into the economy of the country with the year ending 2019. That was 20.1 per cent of all foreign earnings in New Zealand. The value to the economy of the industry was bigger than agriculture and similar to the financial services industry, growing at a substantial pace for many years and expected to grow even more. Then COVID hit in March 2020. Borders were closed to international tourists.

For the tourism industry and individual tourism businesses, COVID has been financially tremendously damaging. Yet others see the arrival of this pandemic positively to re-set an industry – socially and environmentally. However, at present, there is no plan for the strategic return of less, the same goes with international tourists, although borders are said to be opened later this year. Tourism is definitely down, but not out completely, and on so many levels – socially, environmentally, and economically, New Zealand is in urgent need to restart international tourism ASAP. Failing to plan for its re-introduction is planning to fail.

We repeatedly take notice of the phrase that tourism needs a‘re-set’, and as part of that, the government is keen on introducing a shift away from the same number of tourists we are used to welcoming, and focus on high-value foreign tourists. However, for this, there is no strategic plan. While we agree with aspects of a re-set, we do not consider high-value tourist approach is a sustainable or achievable goal. It is improbable to match the economic and social contribution that our 2019 international tourists made.

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