Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Lynda Keene: Tourism Export Council Chief Executive on changes to the visitor visa allowing people to work remotely while on holiday

Transcript

Lynda Keene: Tourism Export Council Chief Executive on changes to the visitor visa allowing people to work remotely while on holiday · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

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  Speaker 1: Well tourists and New Zealand's on the visit of visa
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: will soon be able to work remotely while here. The
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  Speaker 1: change is targeting digital nomads, people employed by overseas companies
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  Speaker 1: here on holiday and working at the same time in
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  Speaker 1: the hope they'll spend more time and money in the country.
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  Speaker 1: Tourism is currently in New Zealand's second largest export and
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  Speaker 1: the latest visit in numbers from Statistics in New Zealand
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  Speaker 1: show we're reaching eighty six percent of the pre COVID levels.
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  Speaker 1: Linda Keen is the Tourism Export Council Chief Executive and
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  Speaker 1: joins me now a very good morning to you, Linda.
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  Speaker 2: Good morning Raman.
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  Speaker 1: How much of a difference will this policy make, because
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  Speaker 1: let's be honest, they've been working anyway.
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  Speaker 2: Look, the third thing, Raman, is that this is very
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  Speaker 2: encouraging that the government has now identified tourism as a
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  Speaker 2: major economic driver and to help their growth agenda. What
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  Speaker 2: difference will it make now? Not a lot in the
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  Speaker 2: second half of the visitor season, which is is January
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  Speaker 2: to March period, and the reason for that is that
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  Speaker 2: New Zealan is a long hal destination. You have to
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  Speaker 2: either have one or two long haul flights to reach US.
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  Speaker 2: So if the target for America or Southeast Asian digital
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  Speaker 2: nomads is for them to come to New Zealand, they
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  Speaker 2: may not quickly switch to that right now. This type
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  Speaker 2: of initiative would have been fantastic to have announced this
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  Speaker 2: time last year.
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  Speaker 1: All right, So you did say it won't make much
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  Speaker 1: of a difference. When will it make a difference?
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  Speaker 2: I think with the upcoming season. So the season starts
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  Speaker 2: on the first of October, and because our digital nomad
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  Speaker 2: and all visitors as a long haul destination, they take
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  Speaker 2: their time to make a commitment to visit New Zealand.
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  Speaker 2: We're a committed to destination. It's a little bit different
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  Speaker 2: with Australia when we might decide tomorrow that we're going
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  Speaker 2: to go to Australia for a short break, which is
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  Speaker 2: a short haul destination. So it's going to take I
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  Speaker 2: would say at least six months for us to see
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  Speaker 2: any positive result with the digital nomad initiative.
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  Speaker 1: All right, Okay, well, good things take time. I guess
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  Speaker 1: could more quick changes have been made to improve visitor numbers.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, we know the government's been working hard with trying
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  Speaker 2: to get the economy back on track. Some of the
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  Speaker 2: decisions that have made in the past twelve months, particularly
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  Speaker 2: with increasing immigration, visa fees and the international Visitor and
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  Speaker 2: Conservation levy, these are decisions that we knew, so these
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  Speaker 2: were increases we knew we're probably going to come through,
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  Speaker 2: but we suggested to government that the best time to
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  Speaker 2: do that would have been from the first of October
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  Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. And that's because the industry is still
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  Speaker 2: in recovery. Our first season that we reached fifty five
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  Speaker 2: percent of pre pandemic numbers. At the end of this season,
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  Speaker 2: we only recovered at eighty three percent, and now on
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  Speaker 2: an annual basis after another six months, we're only at
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  Speaker 2: eighty four percent. So the timing of these initiatives absolutely critical.
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  Speaker 2: But I'm saying that we're just really pleased that the
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  Speaker 2: government have put tourism back as on their growth the gender,
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  Speaker 2: and we're keen to partner and work with them to
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  Speaker 2: get our visitors back as quipment as we can.
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  Speaker 1: You did refer there to previous government decisions on migration
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  Speaker 1: and increasing the levy fees and all that sort of
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  Speaker 1: stuff hasn't had didn't have much of an effect on tourism.
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  Speaker 1: And the economy. If you're faced with a fee to
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  Speaker 1: go and enter our parks or whatever it might be,
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  Speaker 1: is that going to put people off? Have you noticed that.
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  Speaker 2: At this time? Yes, we have the inbound tour operators
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  Speaker 2: that we work with. They have offshore tool wholesalers and
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  Speaker 2: travel agents as their clients, and the word from the
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  Speaker 2: offshore industry is that the timing of us increasing these
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  Speaker 2: fees has certainly had an impact on visitors considering New
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  Speaker 2: Zealand as a destination. We're in a global market to
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  Speaker 2: try and get tourism back to recovery, and we're lagging somewhat.
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  Speaker 2: So any type of initiative needs to have a little
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  Speaker 2: bit of a runway, It needs a bit of a
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  Speaker 2: lead time. And in hindsight, you know, the industry, we
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  Speaker 2: do believe that these increase in fees have had an impact.
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  Speaker 2: We knew they were going to come, but would have
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  Speaker 2: hoped that they would have come later this year, not
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  Speaker 2: last year.
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  Speaker 1: All right, Linda, So in a nutshell, it's a good move.
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  Speaker 1: It'll take time to bed in, but we'll reap the
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  Speaker 1: benefits soon.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, exactly one.
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  Speaker 1: Oh good on your Linda, Linda Keen there, who's the
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  Speaker 1: Tourism Council Chief Executive. Good stuff, good stuff with that
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  Speaker 1: in Netflix and more milk and cheese being exported will
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  Speaker 1: be away and laughing, We'll have enough to retire on
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and no time at all for more from Early Edition
• 4:41
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• 4:44
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