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Ryan Bridge: International spending is up, but is it really a win? · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So Louise Upston fires off an enthusiastic press release last night.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: International visitors spend on the up. It proclaims new data
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: which we get from the International Visitor Survey shows a
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: ten percent jump and spending on the previous year. Sounds impressive, right,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: sounds like we're getting somewhere finally shaking off those COVID cobwebs.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: But and this is where we start to see the
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: spin doctors earning their keep. Let's not forget that we've
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: been dealing with inflation outside of the band over the
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: past year, which means stuff costs more. Restaurants and hotels
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: are included. So are we actually getting more out of
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: tourism than we were? And is the jumping up and
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: down from the minister and the government actually justified? Well,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the measure of success ought to be pre COVID. Right
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: when everything was shut down, we battened down the hatches
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: and we basically kiss the world goodbye. By that measure,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: spending is still only eighty six percent of what it was,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: only eighty six percent of twenty nineteen. Now, the very
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: same minister responsible for last night's press release was the
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: very same minister responsible for firing one off on March
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: fourth this year, celebrating a big boost and tourism spending
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: up to you guessed it, eighty six percent of pre COVID.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: So the longer than short of it is nothing has
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: changed in real terms between March's pr exercise and June's.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: The Aussies and most of our big competition for these
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: international tourists reversed the trends and brought them back a
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: long time ago. The number of tourists traveling around the
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: world recovered to pre pandemic levels last year. Instead of
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: celebrating no real success month after month, we ought to
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: be asking ourselves why we're still such a long way
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: off the hip hot destination we were just five years ago.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: For more Familily edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to
• 2:01
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• 2:04
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