Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Grant Webster: Tourism Holdings Chief Executive on tourism numbers nearly reaching pre-pandemic levels

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Grant Webster: Tourism Holdings Chief Executive on tourism numbers nearly reaching pre-pandemic levels · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: Tourism numbers in, and they are looking good. Overseas visitors,
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  Speaker 1: 250,000 for August. That's 99% of where we were in
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  Speaker 1: August 2019, pre-COVID. Grant Webster, Tourism Holdings, Chief Executive with
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  Speaker 1: me this morning. Grant, good morning.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning, Ryan.
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  Speaker 1: This is good.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really good. I think we can pretty much
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  Speaker 2: call it six years of chasing historical peaks, and I
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  Speaker 2: think we basically can say we're there now. Let's focus
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  Speaker 2: on future growth.
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  Speaker 1: Hey, there's a finance debate in Queenstown last night. Barbara Edmunds, Labour,
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  Speaker 1: the Greens and Opportunity and even Shane Jones were on
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  Speaker 1: board with the bid tax for Queenstown. So, I mean,
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  Speaker 1: it looks like this thing is more and more likely
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  Speaker 1: to happen. Well, I mean, that does depend on the
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  Speaker 1: outcome of the election. But what do you make of that?
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  Speaker 2: I think something needs to happen with funding models. It
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  Speaker 2: is absolutely ideal that it is a national approach and
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  Speaker 2: a consistent approach and that it is targeted to the
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  Speaker 2: right solution so that the money isn't going into consolidated funds,
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  Speaker 2: it's going into infrastructure and improving tourist experiences. But something
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  Speaker 2: needs to happen, yes.
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  Speaker 1: The increase in Chinese visitors, Queenstown, I think China has
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  Speaker 1: now overtaken Australia in terms of visitors into Queenstown, which
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  Speaker 1: is something we've been waiting for, isn't it? The return
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  Speaker 1: of the Chinese tourists.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely. It's really significant growth numbers this year and every
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  Speaker 2: sign that that's just going to continue from here as well. And,
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  Speaker 2: you know, that diversification is a good thing. We are
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  Speaker 2: really heavily reliant on Australia. I mean, we're very close
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  Speaker 2: to basically 50% of our arrivals. So good to get
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  Speaker 2: that diversification and spreading back out. Let's get more from
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  Speaker 2: the US and Europe, UK.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Look, summer's coming. Are we going to get all those
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  Speaker 1: stories again this summer about people being miffed about the
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  Speaker 1: freedom campers and the drivers and the infrastructure and the loos?
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  Speaker 2: I certainly hope not. Let's get the mayors that are
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  Speaker 2: out there in the regions that are going, we need
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  Speaker 2: more economic development, we want more tourists, and let's focus
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  Speaker 2: on those stories where it's going to create more jobs
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  Speaker 2: and create more jobs through the seasons as well. So, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: let's get the positive stories out.
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  Speaker 1: All right. Grant Webster, always good to have you on
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  Speaker 1: the show. Tourism Holdings Chief Executive.