KEY POINTS:
Trevor Hall loves to travel. It's a useful pastime for the boss of one of New Zealand's largest tourism operators, NZX-listed Tourism Holdings.
His journeys have helped to make him an optimist, but as chief executive of Tourism Holdings - with attractions including Kelly Tarlton's and Waitomo Glow-worm Caves - he is concerned low quality, skill shortages and a lack of strategy could damage an industry the Ministry of Tourism says contributed $17.5 billion to the economy in the year to March 2005.
Hall says his travels have shown him the hardships suffered by many people around the world.
"If you've travelled a lot in the Third World you have no right to live in New Zealand and be anything else than an optimist because it's so good here," he says.
Hall travelled extensively from the ages of 21 to 35, taking in Africa, the Amazon, the Himalayas, the Soviet Union and Poland during the era of the Solidarity movement.
"I've been tiptoeing around Nepal when they had a cholera outbreak and there were bodies rolled up on the street," he says.
Hall's optimism icludes the future of the country's tourism industry - but it's a outlook not without risks.
"I'm very optimistic on the future [of tourism]," he says.
"I'm just really concerned that if we get speed wobbles around quality and delivery."
Since Hall became chief executive at Tourism Holdings last July, he has unveiled plans to split the company into four parts focused on customer groups.
"Then you start the process we're in now, which is streamlining the management, working with the divisional heads to get ready for that big step change which will take place in 2007."
One consequence of the restructuring has been the closing of the Auckland corporate head-office and the pushing of senior management roles into the constituent businesses.
"I'll be happy with a desk in the corner somewhere in whatever business," he says.
In five years Hall wants to see success and growth from the restructuring, and the company playing a part in making sure New Zealand has a sustainable tourism industry.
Hall sees huge tourism potential from China and other parts of Asia - but only if visitors are given the right sort of experience when they come to New Zealand.
According to Statistics New Zealand, the number of Chinese visitors to New Zealand rocketed 21 per cent to 104,699 in the year ending November, gaining on the highly-valued Japanese market, which fell 11.4 per cent to 138,240 visitors.
Ministry of Tourism research shows total visitor spending for the year ending September was $6.7 billion, with the average amount spent by Chinese visitors the third highest at $3,748 a visitor, just pipping UK visitors who each spent on average of $3,729.
Air New Zealand began direct flights to Shanghai in October - a move expected to further boost Chinese visitor numbers. However, it was a growing market at risk.
"I think the Chinese market will possibly implode on quality if we don't get that right," Hall says.
"We've got to start working on the quality issues tomorrow."
Growing markets like China are not the only opportunity, he says.
"If I had more choice of where resources would go for both the Government and the national airline, I'd be going India, South America.
"China's obviously good for the airline, but we have to get it right.
"I'm very bullish on the fact that you've got 200 million people in India that are middle class-plus. Probably half of them - 100 million - are capable of buying an overseas visit to New Zealand."
Under Hall's guidance Tourism Holdings will become a stronger lobbyist for action, but it is the responsibility of the industry to make people understand the seriousness of the situation, he says.
The industry needed to be looking further ahead with airline capacity, making it possible for more tourists to visit during peak periods.
However, there is not a large amount of new capital available to service the rising peaks, "and as a consequence we're seeing our product quality erode ... through lack of infrastructure and hotels and lack of quality vehicles on the road, particularly in the coach transport market".
Tourism Holdings owns a number of coach businesses, including Johnston's Coachlines, Kiwi Experience and Great Sights.
The ability to import low-cost, end-of-life vehicles is enabling some companies to set up with a low capital base and little regard for the long-term sustainability of the industry, he says.
"You're getting to a situation where if you come to New Zealand for, say, a three-week period, the chances of you being carted around in a 25-year-old ex-Korean bus are getting higher and higher. It's a huge issue," he says.
"The clean-green image, the sustainability, friendly people, good quality ... all that is being undermined."
Hall wants to see age restriction and emission and quality compliance for imported vehicles including coaches, rental cars and motor homes.
The shortage of staff and the accompanying risk of poor service during the peak February-March season is also a concern.
"We need to look into some of our near Asian locations to bring down more seasonal workers."
However, Hall is not calling for more taxpayers' money but rather a better strategy.
He would like to see a national, Government-led plan that aligns key portfolios such as transport, immigration, tourism and finance around a senior minister.
Working in Wellington and as chief executive of the New Zealand Lotteries Commission has taught Hall important lessons for business and in working with the government.
"To do well in New Zealand business you need to understand the back end of Wellington," he says. "How the system works through officials and bureaucrats and agencies."
New Zealand remains a good-value destination, he says, although a high exchange rate could dampen future tourist numbers.
There was little sign of the exchange rate coming down while the blunt instrument of interest rates, which did not take into account the wider economic impact of a higher dollar, was used to try to control the economy, he said.
"It's not sophisticated enough for a small economy."
However, one way the industry could cut costs was to code-share, particularly in the winter months.
"I think in the winter we have far too much spare capacity.
"We can have a situation going from Auckland to Waitomo where four coaches are going down where one could have gone."
Hall has started talking about such options but is yet to find any takers.
"It's logical to me. I guess it's got to become logical to others as well."
He describes his business style as focused, open, no blurred boundaries and with people empowered to do their jobs.
"I'd be disappointed if people around me didn't know where we were going," he says. "You identify the people you can trust and you load them up with opportunity or responsibility."
Trevor Hall
Age: 47
Home: Auckland
Family: Married with two children
Career:
* 1986-1992: Marketing, Mount Cook group.
* 1992-1994: NZ Tourism Board.
* 1995-2000: Chief executive, Totally Wellington.
* 2001-2002: Executive director, Blaze International.
* 2003-2006: Chief executive, NZ Lotteries Commission.
* 2006 : Chief executive, Tourism Holdings.
