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Grant Webster: Tourism Holdings CEO on the company's financial results · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from NEWSTALKSB Follow this and
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  Speaker 1: for Cellen.
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  Speaker 2: Tough annual result for Tourism Holdings today, but the Campafan
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  Speaker 2: company is still bullish about the future. THHL has posted
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  Speaker 2: a net loss after tax of nearly twenty six million dollars,
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  Speaker 2: but that includes a number of one off adjustments as
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  Speaker 2: such as non cash impairments and so on. The company
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  Speaker 2: is still confident that it will exceed one hundred million
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  Speaker 2: dollar net profit after tax a year on average over
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  Speaker 2: the next three to four years. Grant Webster is Tourism
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  Speaker 2: Holding CEO and with.
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  Speaker 3: Us, Hey, Grant, good a, how are you?
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  Speaker 2: I'm well, thank you. Do you reckon you're through the
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  Speaker 2: worst of it?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, we do. We think that we've passed the bottom
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  Speaker 3: of the cycle learnings and as we say, you know,
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  Speaker 3: it's an inflection point. We are ready to charge your head.
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  Speaker 2: Now, why do you think you're through the worst of it?
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  Speaker 3: Well, look, the first primary thing is we're a core
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  Speaker 3: of our business is about rental revenue and that tourism
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  Speaker 3: environment still remains really really positive. Then on top of that,
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  Speaker 3: we've got ahead of the sort of the fleet excess
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  Speaker 3: issues that we've had over the last of the twelve
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  Speaker 3: eighteen months. And the third one is we've got some
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  Speaker 3: really good cost savings coming through the business. So you
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  Speaker 3: put those three things together and it definitely looks more
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  Speaker 3: positive than the outlook.
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  Speaker 2: Did I see somewhere that you're considering or are selling
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  Speaker 2: off the UK division?
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  Speaker 3: It's under I know that it's political terms, but it's
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  Speaker 3: under strategic reviews, so we're not saying definitely that we'll
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  Speaker 3: sell it. But look that business has got about sixty
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  Speaker 3: million dollars worth of funds New Zealand dollars and it's
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  Speaker 3: not delivering a profit, has it for a little while,
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  Speaker 3: So it's right for us to challenge ourselves pretty harshly
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  Speaker 3: on where it sits and why it's with the business.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, what about the tariffs? How are you finding them?
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  Speaker 3: Not a lot of fun to be fair, I guess
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  Speaker 3: you know, it's interesting customers from the EU to the
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  Speaker 3: US have been talking about price borders, and you know,
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  Speaker 3: the tariff's being the Trump trifector, So what is it
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  Speaker 3: that really motivates go to the US At the moment.
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  Speaker 3: It's been challenging this year, but we see some upside
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  Speaker 3: next year, but not for a few months to come.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, what happened to the buyout? Why did that fall over?
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  Speaker 3: Well, on August the fourth, we gave the feedback to
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  Speaker 3: BGH Consortium that we thought the value of TL was
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  Speaker 3: well north of three dollars. They had offered two dollars
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  Speaker 3: thirty this year, so it's been quite since then. So
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  Speaker 3: we'll see what happens from here.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, do you are you expecting something else? Maybe like
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  Speaker 2: a little rethink?
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  Speaker 3: Well, no doubt they are thinking to some extent, but
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  Speaker 3: we know from watching what they do with other situations
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  Speaker 3: that they'll either hold and watch or who knows what.
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  Speaker 3: So not really for us to speculate, but it'll be interesting.
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  Speaker 2: Grant, what do you reckon we need to do to
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  Speaker 2: get tourists back in this country the way that they
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  Speaker 2: were with us pre COVID. Is that even a good idea.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, it's a good idea. We have plenty of space
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  Speaker 3: and availability in this country. We can definitely get back
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  Speaker 3: to our pre COVID level members and beyond. Yes, there
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  Speaker 3: are some infrastructure things that need to be sorted out
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  Speaker 3: in places like Queen's Down, but don't let that stop
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  Speaker 3: the ambition of tourism getting ahead of dairy again from
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  Speaker 3: an export earning perspective. So what do we need to do.
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  Speaker 3: We need to increase air capacity and that's been an issue.
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  Speaker 3: We need to invest in events, and we need to
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  Speaker 3: help the cruise industry. And we do those three things
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  Speaker 3: and I think you'll see that numbers will really start
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  Speaker 3: to increase dramatically.
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  Speaker 2: Are you talking about investing in events in Auckland in particular.
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  Speaker 3: Well, Auckland is the center of events in the country,
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  Speaker 3: but you look in December last year, we had a
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  Speaker 3: record December because of the World iron Man Games that
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  Speaker 3: were on in Tolpo. So it doesn't have to be
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  Speaker 3: Auckland centric. It can be across the country. To look
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  Speaker 3: at the fief of Woman's World Cup. That made a
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  Speaker 3: huge difference across the country. So let's not overly Auckland centric.
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  Speaker 3: But of course that's where most of the events are held.
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  Speaker 2: I'm trying to figure out what went wrong. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: we had all of these fantastic events and now we
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  Speaker 2: don't anymore. So what happened?
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  Speaker 3: We stopped funding it? We did well across the board.
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  Speaker 3: We the government funding that was going into large scale
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  Speaker 3: events reduced and we haven't been supporting them to the
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  Speaker 3: same extent from both local councils and central government.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, I know that Auckland Council's funding dropped off, but
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  Speaker 2: are you saying the government's central government's funding dropped off too.
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  Speaker 3: We have not had the same amount of major event
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  Speaker 3: funding as we did pre COVID.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah, I think you might have a good
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  Speaker 2: point there actually, And how do you feel about the
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  Speaker 2: economy in New Zealand? You reckon, we've turned a corner.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, turning slowly. It's interesting, as you know THL operates
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  Speaker 3: around the world. We certainly see Australia as in a
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  Speaker 3: better place than New Zealand right at the moment, and
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  Speaker 3: from a tourism perspective, I think it's got a really
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  Speaker 3: positive few years. A hit Canada actually has all the
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  Speaker 3: teriff issues going on, but feels reasonably positive. New Zealand
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  Speaker 3: definitely turning the corner. We've seen that in our action
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  Speaker 3: manufacturing businesses starting to get some contracts and transport and
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  Speaker 3: so forth again, so starting to turn the corner bit
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  Speaker 3: some time to come, you know, Grant.
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  Speaker 2: I feel like obviously a lot of what we've gone through.
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  Speaker 2: Is the whiplash that is the result of all of
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  Speaker 2: the COVID spending and stuff like that. There's been like
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  Speaker 2: really crappy management of the economy, both fiscally and monetary
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  Speaker 2: that we are now paying for. But I wonder also,
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  Speaker 2: I'm starting to feel as if maybe some of this
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  Speaker 2: is us just having to take the medicine for some
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  Speaker 2: bad things we've been doing, like investing in housing and stuff,
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  Speaker 2: and perhaps this is a correction that we've been that's
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  Speaker 2: long overdue. Is that possible.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, look, it's entirely possible. I think when you look
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  Speaker 3: at New Zealand's ambition, it feels like that's a bit
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  Speaker 3: of what we've lost. Yeah, you know, you look at
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  Speaker 3: that attitude to say, actually, we're going to take on
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  Speaker 3: the rest of the world. We're going to grow into
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  Speaker 3: other countries. You know, it's all everything seems sluggish and
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  Speaker 3: so yeah, I look, I'm a firm believer and the
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  Speaker 3: whole let's stay positive, let's be realistic about where we are,
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  Speaker 3: and I think tourism is a good example of that. Right,
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  Speaker 3: we really can grow this economy if we're open to
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  Speaker 3: these kinds of tourism opportunities. So let's get on with it.
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  Speaker 2: So what is it that caused us to lose our ambition?
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  Speaker 3: I do personally, I definitely think it was just that
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  Speaker 3: drag of COVID and for some reason, when I look
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  Speaker 3: around the rest of the world, other countries just and
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  Speaker 3: I travel a fair bit for this business, other countries
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  Speaker 3: feel like they're just leant into things and just got
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  Speaker 3: on with things. To a greater extent, we seem to
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  Speaker 3: have got ourselves into a bit of a rut. But
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  Speaker 3: as you said, maybe turning the corner.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, hopefully. Hey, Grant, thank you was always I really
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  Speaker 2: appreciate talking to you. That's Grant Webster, Tourism Holding CEO.
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