Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Grant Webster: Tourism Holdings Chief Executive on the government investing 13.5 million dollars into Tourism New Zealand

Transcript

Grant Webster: Tourism Holdings Chief Executive on the government investing 13.5 million dollars into Tourism New Zealand · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The government's coughing up thirteen and a half million dollars
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: for a new global marketing campaign to attract tourists to
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: New Zealand this comes. That's the number of international visitors
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: dropped two percent in February compared with last year, though
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: that was largely to do with the timing of the
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Chinese New Year. We're still only at eighty five percent
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: of pre COVID overall. Chief Executive Tourism Holdings Grant Websters
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: with me, Hi Grant.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Good morning, welcome back to the morning.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Thank you good to be here. So is now a
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: good time to be spending coin on advertising for international
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: tourism direcum.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, I do. Obviously I'm somewhat biased, but it's a
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: very competitive market out there, and often in New Zealand
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: we think people just come, you know, because we're a
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: great country, which we are, but we're well less than
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: one percent of world tourism, so you know, we have
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: to compete.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Did you see your boost from the campaign that they
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: launched in Australia? You know that everyone must Go campaign
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: that everyone made fun of. Did it work as you
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: have you seen any evidence of it work?
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Look, there has been some commentary in the market that
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: some people have. It's a very difficult time year on
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: year comparisons because East is obviously so late relative to
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: last year. There's no major events in winter, so it's
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: quite hard to get a direct comparison out of Australia
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: for US at that time. It's not a big market
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: for US. We turn domestic at that time, so not noticeable.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: But there has been some positive commentary in the industry.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: How is domestic going?
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Oh, look, it's okay, it's okay. It's not something to
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: write home about, but we're not in the doldrums about it.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: It's okay.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: What markets do you reckon? We should be targeting because
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: they're talking China, they're talking Australia in the US, India, Germany,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: South Korea. India less so, but as an emerging market
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: in South Korea, I.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Think that feels really good. Actually, the tourist in New
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Zealand's get the information on forward bookings, they get the
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: information on who's got the most active considerers for New Zealand,
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: targeting where the fish are, so I think that's the
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: right thing to do. They feel like the right markets.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: How worried are you? Grant about the slowdown, you know,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: the global general global slowdown that will inevitably come from
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: these tariffs.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I think that the volatility and uncertainty is
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: I know those have come. Where's everybody's using But no,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: look that is it is concerning on a global basis.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: You know, people put their hands in their pockets very quickly.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: We know that. We certainly see and we've talked about
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: this that Europeans going into the US because we're obviously
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: got business up there that's really dropped off. Will that
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: balance out with domestic in the US. I don't know. So, yeah,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: we watch and wait and see. Definitely. In the past
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: we've seen things recover quite quickly when there's been a
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: bit of a pause. But we'll see. You have to
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: see what happens this time.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: All right, Grant, Hey, take care, best of luck, Thanks
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: for coming on the program. As always, Grant, we chief
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: executive Terrorism Holdings.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: For more Familiarly edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: Newstalk SETB from five am weekdays, or follow the podcast
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: on iHeartRadio.