Latest / Best of Business / Brad Olsen: Infometrics Principal Economist unpacks the current market for digital nomads

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Brad Olsen: Infometrics Principal Economist unpacks the current market for digital nomads · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: right now.
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  Speaker 2: The government's hopeful that digital nomads will soon flood into
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  Speaker 2: the country and help grow our economy, but the Finance
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  Speaker 2: Minister Nicola Willis last night couldn't say how many we
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  Speaker 2: can realistically expect here. Brad Olsen is Infametric's principal economist,
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  Speaker 2: Brad good Evening, Good Evening, do we have any idea
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  Speaker 2: how big this market is?
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  Speaker 3: Look, it is pretty tricky to pin it down. There
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  Speaker 3: are some global estimates that suggest you could be talking
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  Speaker 3: in the range of sort of thirty five to forty
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  Speaker 3: million digital nomads, and perhaps around I've seen some estimates
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  Speaker 3: of around sort of seventeen million American digital nomads, and
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  Speaker 3: that's probably the groups that we are targeting a little
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  Speaker 3: bit more, because that's certainly the area where there's a
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  Speaker 3: bit more money. We've already been seeing some very strong
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  Speaker 3: inflows of American tourists into New Zealand since the end
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  Speaker 3: of sort of pandemic restriction, so that certainly seems to
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  Speaker 3: be an area focus. However, with all of those numbers,
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  Speaker 3: I can't tell you how many we might expect would
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  Speaker 3: actually come to New Zealand, and that, of course is
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  Speaker 3: still a pretty important number.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, basically it's too hard to quantify, isn't it. And
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  Speaker 2: I guess the other thing is don't they normally go
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  Speaker 2: to countries that would have a cheaper cost of living
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  Speaker 2: like a Bali or Southeast Asia somewhere like that, or
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  Speaker 2: do you have different demographics within that COVI.
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  Speaker 3: I think you could probably have both. I mean, in
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  Speaker 3: broad terms, looking at this, I'm not sure that we
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  Speaker 3: can lose a lot from this policy in general. You know,
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  Speaker 3: it might not be huge, but we're just sort of
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  Speaker 3: not sure. But at the very least, if it's supporting
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  Speaker 3: more people coming into the country, and generally a lot
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  Speaker 3: of these digital nomads, if they're able to think about
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  Speaker 3: working overseas, they are, a lot of demographics suggest they
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  Speaker 3: are often in sort of higher pay brackets that do
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  Speaker 3: have a bit more money to spend. And I think
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  Speaker 3: there's sort of probably two groups here. The first group
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  Speaker 3: is those who are, let's be clear, probably already doing
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  Speaker 3: it without knowing that perhaps they shouldn't, and so we're
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  Speaker 3: now enabling them to continue doing so that's great. We've
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  Speaker 3: also I think put a bit more of a spotlight
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  Speaker 3: on the opportunity to come to New Zealand. You look
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  Speaker 3: at them over the last twenty four hours since the
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  Speaker 3: announcement has come out, there's been a lot more talk.
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  Speaker 3: There's been articles published, I think in the New York Times,
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  Speaker 3: some of it coming across from the UK. So this
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  Speaker 3: is probably a little bit less for the New Zealand audience,
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  Speaker 3: more for the global audience going Hey, look, New Zealand
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  Speaker 3: is very very openly trying to court people to come here,
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  Speaker 3: and if people were already thinking of coming for a
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  Speaker 3: trip to New Zealand, this now might sort of put
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  Speaker 3: us on the map a bit more. You're right that
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  Speaker 3: in some areas, some other digital nomad visas do often
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  Speaker 3: provide a longer time period or have cheaper cost of
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  Speaker 3: living in similar I think this is more trying to
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  Speaker 3: add on top of or convince people who already were
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  Speaker 3: perhaps thinking of a New Zealand trip to definitely do that,
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  Speaker 3: or perhaps to come longer and therefore spend more money
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  Speaker 3: in the country. So I'm not sure if there's any
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  Speaker 3: real downsides this policy in the short.
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  Speaker 2: Term interesting right, well, I mean, if there's no real downside.
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  Speaker 2: I guess why not do it? That's probably the ethos
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  Speaker 2: that's running through the beehive at the moment. Brad, Thank
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  Speaker 2: you for that. Brad Elson, Informetrics Principal economist.
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