Gavin Oliver: Election 2023 - We need to talk tourism policy as NZ’s biggest export earner

Gavin Oliver, of EcoZip Adventures. Photo / Supplied

OPINION

The picturesque landscapes, rich cultural heritage and warm hospitality that have long made Aotearoa one of the world’s most desirable tourist destinations are once again luring visitors to our shores.

In the 2019/20 financial year, tourism contributed an estimated NZ$41.4 billion to the New Zealand economy and was the nation’s biggest export earner, contributing 20.1 per cent of total exports.

Today, the reopening of borders in Japan and China, increasing air capacity and new routes from North America, are ensuring the sector is well on its way to regaining its pre-pandemic contribution to the economy.

Regardless of how reassuring this revival is to our ever-resilient tourism operators and workers, it has not resulted in a fresh commitment of support from the Government. The absence of a current, comprehensive tourism policy is an oversight that is threatening the sector’s current growth trajectory.

The importance of New Zealand’s tourism industry to the country’s overall economic health cannot be underplayed.

Although Treasury has not yet released a full-year picture of the sector’s post-pandemic performance, prior to Covid it contributed more than 9 per cent of the total gross domestic product (GDP), with more than13 per cent of the workforce employed directly or indirectly by the tourism industry.

When economists confirmed in May that New Zealand had entered a “technical recession” during the first quarter of 2023, Finance Minister Grant Robertson acknowledged the tourism sector’s contribution to the economy’s relative resilience.

However, with less than two months to run until this year’s General Election, a comprehensive policy statement on tourism is conspicuously absent from any party’s pre-election dialogue.

The relationship between the tourism industry and the Government is symbiotic: the industry relies on the Government for regulatory support, infrastructure development, and funding initiatives, while the Government benefits from the economic contributions and job creation that the industry offers. To ignore this interconnectedness is to risk harm to both the industry and the economy at large.

Finance Minister Grant Robertson. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The current Government stance seems to suggest the tourism industry should be financially self-sufficient, but this ignores the halo effect it generates for the broader economy. Beyond the direct revenue generated by tourism, there are countless indirect beneficiaries, from the West Auckland garage that services tour buses to the Southland farmer who supplies fresh produce to cafes and restaurants frequented by domestic and international tourists.

The sector’s access to Government funding veers from unreliable to arbitrary, and contains significant regional inconsistencies.

For example, the pre-pandemic contribution of the Auckland visitor economy to the wider regional economy amounted to $8.4 billion in 2019/20, but in 2023, budget constraints have prompted Auckland Council to defund its economic development agency, Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, slashing a staggering $47 million from its budget.

At a national level, the Government’s decision to end funding for Go With Tourism, an initiative aimed at encouraging Kiwis to pursue careers in the tourism sector, means it will cease to operate after October 2023, just at the time the sector needs to staff-up and simultaneously upskill.

Funding was made available to assist regional tourism bodies in developing destination management plans, which have sustainability and community engagement at their core, but no further funding was provided to support the execution of these plans.

Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA) has laid out its own blueprint for the future of New Zealand’s tourism sector, entitled the Tourism 2050 Draft Strategy. Tourism spokespersons from five of the leading political parties were given the opportunity to share their parties’ respective visions for the tourism industry and to address the recommendations put forward by the strategy document at the recent TIA-hosted Discussing Tourism Election Forum.

While it was good to see the main parties represented, none of them appeared to offer any substantive opinions or ideas about the future of the sector. This inertia underlines my question: are they taking tourism seriously?

Regardless of who will form the next government, the document calls for policymakers to develop a robust policy statement for the tourism industry: one that recognises the importance of tourism, outlines a comprehensive strategy and ensures consistent and adequate funding to accomplish its objectives.

New Zealand’s first Minister for Tourism was its 17 Prime Minister, Joseph Ward, who took on the portfolio between 1906 and 1909 and again between 1928 and 1930. Ward is one of five prime ministers to have assumed this responsibility; Sir John Key was the most recent. By contrast, the current Minister for Tourism is Peeni Henare, who also serves as Minister for the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC), Minister for the Environment and Associate Minister of Health with responsibility for Māori.

This is not to suggest Henare is unsuited to the role, but rather, that the current Government appears to not deem the tourism industry a high-enough priority to warrant a more experienced hand at the wheel. What’s more, Henare’s significant collection of other ministerial portfolios restricts his ability to focus on the needs of the tourism sector at a time when New Zealand is re-establishing its reputation as a world-leading destination.

A harmonious partnership between the tourism industry and the state, based on mutual support and collaboration, is essential if we are to succeed in overcoming the challenges involved in maximising the tourism industry’s potential and cementing New Zealand’s standing as a sustainability-focused, global tourist destination. A road map that clearly outlines the route this partnership must follow is the linchpin to a successful journey and should be a priority for the next Government.

Gavin Oliver is the founding director of EcoZip Adventures and an eco-tourism advocate.