Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Cath O'Brien: Board of Airline Representatives Executive Director on the tourism sector still not recovering to pre-pandemic levels

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Cath O'Brien: Board of Airline Representatives Executive Director on the tourism sector still not recovering to pre-pandemic levels · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: Our tourism recovery appears to have stalled. A number of
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: overseas arrivals reached three point two million in the year
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  Speaker 1: to June. That sounds good, but it's down seventeen percent
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  Speaker 1: on pre pandemic peaks and still hovering it around eighty
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  Speaker 1: percent of pre COVID levels for the year. It comes
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  Speaker 1: at a time where visa chargers are going up in
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  Speaker 1: the international visitor levy could rise by as much as
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  Speaker 1: three times to one hundred dollars for many tourists outside
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  Speaker 1: of Australia in the Pacific. Cath O'Brien's with the Board
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  Speaker 1: of Airline Representatives is with us this morning. Cath, Good morning,
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  Speaker 1: good morning. How do we compare? How does our recovery
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  Speaker 1: post COVID compare to other countries?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I think you know, New Zealand's among those
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  Speaker 2: countries that had its borders closed for longer, so we
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  Speaker 2: are slower to recover. And you know, last time we
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  Speaker 2: enjoyed a great sort of boom recovery from COVID and
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  Speaker 2: saw a lot of travel, which is fantasy six, and
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  Speaker 2: saw a lot of tourists returning to New Zealand. What
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  Speaker 2: we're seeing now though, is that kind of recovery stop,
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  Speaker 2: which is unusual in the world and unusual and Compton,
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  Speaker 2: but yeah, like unusual in that you know, we've we've
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  Speaker 2: got other countries who would see tourism continue to grow
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  Speaker 2: and New Zealand appears to be seeing tourism are numbers
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  Speaker 2: kind of stalling, which is which makes us strange. Right
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  Speaker 2: looking ahead to the summer twenty twenty four, so airlines
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  Speaker 2: have planned their schedules and we can see that New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand as a total country will receive just two percent
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  Speaker 2: more services than we saw last year, which is far
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  Speaker 2: less than we would love to see. So you know
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  Speaker 2: that that is going to bring us to you a tourists,
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  Speaker 2: and in a time that that's happening, you know, to
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  Speaker 2: increase our visa costs so very deeply and so suddenly
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  Speaker 2: is really counterproductive.
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  Speaker 1: What is behind us, do you think?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a really good question. New Zealand appears to
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  Speaker 2: be losing market share, so so we seem to sort
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  Speaker 2: of be losing the fight and being a great place
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  Speaker 2: to go to. You know, there are other nature based
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  Speaker 2: economies that offer far more inexpensive you know, holidays. You know,
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  Speaker 2: I'm looking here at the likes of Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam.
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  Speaker 2: You know, those economies are seeing some great, some great recoveries,
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  Speaker 2: and noticably Vietnam has they're taking its visitor a rival
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  Speaker 2: charge to zero to encourage that to happen at New Zealand.
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  Speaker 1: Does that make a difference? Does that make a difference,
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  Speaker 1: because we're obviously going to look at hiking us. Does
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  Speaker 1: it actually stop people?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? I think it actually really does because it's the
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  Speaker 2: total cost of the journey, and especially when New Zealand is,
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  Speaker 2: you know, a really long way away often for many travelers,
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  Speaker 2: a very expensive place to commit to coming to. In
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  Speaker 2: any case, then that to add, you know, hundreds of
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  Speaker 2: dollars of cost, and here we're seeing Jesus rise. A
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  Speaker 2: visitor visa is now three hundred and forty one dollars
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  Speaker 2: for an individual, and then what are we going to
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  Speaker 2: add the international visitor leva at another one hundred dollars
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  Speaker 2: on top of that, so four hundred and forty you
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  Speaker 2: haven't even bought a ticket yet.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, Kat, that's a really good point. Actually, gosh, it
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  Speaker 1: sounds a bloody expensive, doesn't it when.
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  Speaker 2: You put it like that?
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  Speaker 1: Kat, Thank you for your time this morning. Cath O'Brien,
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  Speaker 1: bord Aville Unrepresentatives. I can remember traveling around South America,
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  Speaker 1: Central America, that kind of stuff when I was younger,
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  Speaker 1: and the Galapagus Islands. I remember we had to pay
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  Speaker 1: a one hundred dollars I think it was one hundred
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  Speaker 1: US dollars visitor levy. But of course it's the Glaphicas Islands.
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  Speaker 2: You know.
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  Speaker 1: You go there because David Edinburgh went there, you know,
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  Speaker 1: and you want to see it all, so you just
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  Speaker 1: pay it. For more from News Talks B listen live
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• 3:41
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