A tourism boss says early feedback from the Trenz trade event shows strong interest in what Aotearoa is offering as the visitor industry helps the country stave off recession.
The three-day event in Christchurch attracted hundreds of buyers from overseas to meet hundreds of sellers of New Zealand tourism and travel products.
More than 330 buyers from 25 markets from around the world attended. These include New Zealand’s largest visitor markets such as Australia, China, the United States, Britain and Japan, and developing markets such as Argentina and India. Israel attended this year for the first time.
About 300 New Zealand tourism businesses were at Trenz, 44 attending for the first time.
‘’We’re getting little snippets of feedback and I’m delighted to see very strong initial satisfaction scores from our buyers,’’ said Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Rebecca Ingram.
‘’That says that they were having good meetings and they were doing good business while they were here.’’
A full assessment by Angus & Associates of the value of the event was underway.
Ingram said she’d had strong feedback from sellers. ‘’They said there were really good quality buyers who were genuinely interested and ready to partner with the industry.’’
Treasury now forecasts New Zealand will avoid recession thanks in part to the contribution of tourism. Other factors include the growth in net migration, rebuild activity associated with the North Island weather events, and less contractionary fiscal policy will help to offset slowing demand in other parts of the economy.
Tourism businesses are directly employing more than 145,000 Kiwis, with 76 per cent paying staff a living wage or above, according to TIA’s recent workforce survey.
Tourism NZ figures for summer show that, between December 2022 and February this year, New Zealand welcomed 890,000 visitors, 66 per cent of the pre-Covid number. Of these, 385,000 were holiday visitors, 53 per cent of pre-Covid levels.
‘‘While a positive step in our recovery, summer was a mixed bag result for many regions, including those affected by extreme weather events.’'
Latest holiday arrivals data for March 2023 show we’re at 55 per cent of pre-Covid levels.
‘‘Preference for New Zealand among those actively considering visiting continues to grow and remains high, at 44.8 per cent, giving us a highly motivated group of people to reach with our activity. As we look ahead, tough economic conditions, strong airline recovery and fierce global competition mean that targeting high-quality visitors is more important than ever to support New Zealand’s recovery,’' Tourism NZ says.
Paul Button, general manager of Rotorua Canopy Tours, said the Budget was uninspiring.
He said $8 million to support the Māori tourism sector and $18m to implement the Tourism Better Work Action Plan were small wins.
“Instead of rewarding a sector that has contributed to the country’s better than forecasted Covid-19 recovery, we’ve been left largely unaccounted for in Budget 2023.’’
By not investing more into one of Aotearoa’s most promising sectors, we ran the risk of being swallowed up within the international tourism market, he said.
‘’With international travel back to its strengths across the globe, it’s important that our country’s attractions are top notch – but this requires investment.
“Tourism’s recovery has progressed better than expected, and the industry holds significant potential to act as a buffer for our economy during challenging times. It’s disappointing we haven’t been given a boost to do so.”
And TIA was unhappy that a $54m innovation programme has been cut. “While we can appreciate Budget 2023 has looked widely for savings, we are disappointed to see the Innovation Programme for the Tourism Recovery Fund has been reduced by $10m,” Ingram said.
The programme was launched in November last year and was just getting started.
‘’It is designed to enable the industry to transform, innovate and take big strides towards our ambition of regenerative tourism. Reducing the fund size curtails the potential positive impact of tourism from these innovative new projects.”
But TIA has also welcomed support for the Better Work Action Plan – developed collaboratively by Government, Māori, industry and unions. Ingram said the plan had the potential to be transformative for the industry as there was ambition for more tourism businesses to become employers of choice.
‘’This funding ensures the plan doesn’t sit in a top drawer,” Ingram said.
The Government’s investment in EV charging and rebuilding infrastructure following flooding also benefitted tourism.
A report by economist Benje Patterson has found at least $291 million was spent by bike tourists who cycled through New Zealand’s production plantation forests last year.
Recreational bike access to forests was a key element of regional visitor economies.
”What’s more spending associated with bike tourists to plantation forests has grown by two-thirds since before Covid-19,” he said.
The research wasn’t commissioned by any organisation.
‘‘It is public good research at a national level. Part of the exercise is to build up my own capabilities in this space, as I have the ability to go into more detail when needed to research specifics of certain regions,’' Patterson said.
”To put the estimate of $291m of spending by bike visitors to production forests in perspective, total spending by visitors along the New Zealand Cycle Trail network was estimated at $951m in 2021.”
At least 96 plantation forests are currently used for recreational mountain biking, with local residents accounting for 265,000 of the 600,000 riders in the forests over the past year and the remaining 335,000 being visitors to the host region.
Plantation forests with mountain bike access are spread throughout New Zealand, with 44 per cent in the South Island and 56 per cent in the North Island.
The top regions for production forest bike tourism are Rotorua, Auckland, Queenstown, Dunedin and Christchurch, followed by Wānaka, Nelson-Tasman, Taranaki, Taupō and Coromandel.
“Over the next five years, there is an opportunity for mountain biking in plantation forests to grow by about 9.5 per cent, which would take total spending by bike tourists in the forests to around $318m across host regions.”
To build unique and exciting bike experiences trail managers need to focus not only on building high-quality trails and associated infrastructure but also develop strong partnerships with local forestry companies.
Patterson has previously published other reports which valued bike tourism in specific regions, including Rotorua and Queenstown Lakes.
The Government has committed funding to the sector in an effort to support future plans.