KEY POINTS:
One of our biggest businesses is worried about what will happen to the New Zealand economy if environmentally conscious tourists stop coming here, simply because it is too far.
Air New Zealand has identified a US$900 ($1.1 billion) million increase in annual fuel costs over five years and competition as big challenges. The airline uses 9 million barrels of jet fuel a year, the majority of which is guzzled on long haul flights.
But its biggest challenge is maintaining the attractiveness of New Zealand as a tourism destination.
Three-quarters of the bums on seats on its long haul flights are tourists.
Air New Zealand was first and foremost a tourism business, chief executive Rob Fyfe told Parliament's finance and expenditure select committee yesterday.
He said that research in the United Kingdom showed that 38 per cent of passengers considered their carbon footprint when they fly.
"New Zealand has seen a decline in tourism numbers out of Europe in the last 12 months. There is no direct correlation at this early stage between environmental issues and that decline in inbound tourism.
"But it is something that genuinely concerns us and much of what we can do here in New Zealand in terms of adventure is available in shorter haul destinations," he said.
This is why the airline is upping its green credentials. It is investing heavily in new planes that are more fuel efficient and has announced a scheme that allows customers to offset their carbon footprint by buying credits purchased from a windfarm or donating to environmental trust. Uptake of such schemes has been low globally.
But Air New Zealand is saying that such schemes are important as a tool for allaying tourists' concerns about the distance they travel to holiday.
According to Statistics New Zealand in the year ended February 2008, there was a 1 per cent, or 3800 person, decline in the number of visitors from Europe.
There were also 19,400, or 4 per cent fewer visitors from Asia.
More cruise passengers and Air New Zealand's new direct air service between Vancouver and Auckland contributed to 1800 more visitors arriving from Canada in the month of February compared with February 2007. And more Australians are coming here.
During the February 2008 year, overall there were 2.485 million visitor arrivals, up 52,500, or 2 per cent, from the February 2007 year.
A holiday was the main reason for travel for 1.222 million visitors to New Zealand in the February 2008 year, up 2 per cent, from the previous year. Another 718,600 arrived to visit friends and relatives, up 3 per cent, and 269,400 arrived for business, up 1100 or less than 1 per cent.
"We don't want to be ruled out of consideration as a destination because it is seen as unsustainable to be here at all," Prime Minister Helen Clark said in releasing a new tourism industry strategy document last year.
New Zealand as a country, and tourism as an industry, must go the extra mile to prove its sustainability credentials.
"Being clean and green and 100 per cent pure is priceless positioning and we must keep it," she said.
- NZPA
