Latest / Best of Business / Tim Alpe: LyLo director on the Government relaxing visa requirements to attract digital nomads

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Tim Alpe: LyLo director on the Government relaxing visa requirements to attract digital nomads · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Well, the other big thing is that Nicola Willis went
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  Speaker 2: to Wellington Airport and said that the government is relaxing
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  Speaker 2: visitor visas to allow tourists to work in the country remotely.
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  Speaker 2: They're called digital nomads and from today visitors who work
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  Speaker 2: for overseas companies can do their remote work while holidaying
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  Speaker 2: here for up to ninety days. The aim of the
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  Speaker 2: government is to get visitors to stay here for longer
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  Speaker 2: and to spend more, and they believe there are many,
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  Speaker 2: but they don't know the numbers. Tim Alp is the
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  Speaker 2: managing director of Liiloh, which is a traveler accommodation provider.
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  Speaker 2: He joins you now, hello, Tim, goody Andrew, how are
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  Speaker 2: you going good? Is this much of a change. Surely
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  Speaker 2: people just bring in their computer and start working anyway,
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  Speaker 2: and we don't know whether they're a digital nomad or not.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's definitely the case. We've seen a big spike
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  Speaker 3: in that across our properties post COVID. A lot of
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  Speaker 3: people coming in and we call them pleasure So they
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  Speaker 3: come in and they work for a couple of weeks
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  Speaker 3: they stay and they look around the city and work
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  Speaker 3: during the day, and yeah, so it is there already.
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  Speaker 3: I definitely think this is a really good move by
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  Speaker 3: the government.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it makes it legal, it makes it you know that,
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  Speaker 2: it's not on the sneaky sneaky. But the question is
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  Speaker 2: will this increase the numbers if we've already got the
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  Speaker 2: numbers doing it.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it will increase the numbers. I think
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  Speaker 3: there's definitely a desire and if we can get the
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  Speaker 3: word out there globally that you can come to New
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  Speaker 3: Zealand and as you say, you can legally work and
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  Speaker 3: travel and do your work while you're here, I think
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  Speaker 3: that's a great thing. And so I think, yeah, it
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  Speaker 3: will increase the numbers. To what degree we don't know,
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  Speaker 3: but as I said, we're already starting to see it.
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  Speaker 3: We're designing our properties around that so you can work
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  Speaker 3: for a wherever you are. And so I definitely think
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  Speaker 3: the days of the old business center in the windowless
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  Speaker 3: room are over, and I think people will actually be
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  Speaker 3: able to workite whilst they travel.
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  Speaker 2: How will they know, I mean, how are we going
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  Speaker 2: to tell them we're open for digital nomad business.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the biggest challenge I see, Andrew, So I
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  Speaker 3: think you know, Tourism New Zealand do a great job
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  Speaker 3: promoting New Zealand on a pretty tight budget. We've got
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  Speaker 3: to get out there. We've changed the working holiday visas,
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  Speaker 3: we've changed this digital nomad visa. We've done all this
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  Speaker 3: great stuff, but we're nowver to tell the world. So
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  Speaker 3: we've got to get out internationally. We've got to go
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  Speaker 3: to big trade shows. We've got to be telling people
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  Speaker 3: that actually New Zealand is a great destination for that
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  Speaker 3: and you can come and you can work and travel
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  Speaker 3: at the same time.
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  Speaker 2: All right, And what we're a what eighty six percent
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  Speaker 2: of what happened before for COVID of wek just from
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  Speaker 2: your own personal position from Lilo are our accommodation providers
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  Speaker 2: getting by?
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  Speaker 3: We need more. Definitely we're getting by, but it's definitely
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  Speaker 3: not where we need to be. I mean, I think
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  Speaker 3: the big thing now is we need to get more events.
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  Speaker 3: So things like Luke Comb's or All Black Games and
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  Speaker 3: stuff at Eaton Park are huge for the Auckland market.
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  Speaker 3: But I think if we can just keep focusing on
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  Speaker 3: New Zealand should be the biggest export on a tourism
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  Speaker 3: ship for New Zealand, and we said to keep focusing
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  Speaker 3: on promoting ourselves globally.
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  Speaker 2: Turn Out, Managing director of Lilo I thank you for
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  Speaker 2: your time.
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