Covid 19 coronavirus: Kiwis keen to back local business to reboot economy: research

A new report has found that New Zealanders are keen to get behind the country's businesses to reboot the economy damaged by the Covid-19 outbreak.

In the latest Covid Times study, which surveyed more than 600 New Zealand earlier this week, Colmar Brunton found that there had been a surge in national pride and a desire to support local businesses since the pandemic hit home.

Three in five, or 60 per cent, of New Zealanders surveyed said they planned to provide more support to their locally-owned businesses and those located throughout New Zealand.

New Zealanders said that they also wanted to support local tourism, exploring their own backyard rather than jumping on a plane to visit an international destination.

About 44 per cent of Kiwis said they would holiday more throughout New Zealand compared to what they were prior to Covid-19, while approximately 41 per cent said they will now spend less time overseas.

Colmar Brunton head Sarah Bolger said the findings suggested that there had been a renewed sense of national pride in both a business and political sense, with the support for the government up since its previous survey two weeks ago.

"Our relative success in uniting against COVID is feeding into a sense of national pride, and the beneficiaries may well be local businesses and well-known New Zealand brands," Sarah Bolger, head of Colmar Brunton, said.

"Kiwis are keen to support them in the new normal."

While support for the Government has increased, New Zealanders have also grown an appreciation for the little things in life - conversations, trees and the barista-made flat white, the findings revealed.

More than 50 per cent of those surveyed said they intended to take more pleasure for the small things in life once lockdown was lifted and once a new sense of normality outside of lockdown was established. This was particularly the case for respondents with children.

About 40 per cent of Kiwis said they planned to spend more time in the great outdoors and amongst nature once compared to what they did prior to the crisis.

Source: Colmar Brunton

About 87 per cent of New Zealanders said they backed the Government in their management of the crisis - up from 83 per cent recorded in the survey two weeks ago.

This level of support outstripped that the average amongst all G7 countries of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Britain and the United States.

The survey also found that New Zealand's success in breaking the chain of transmission, had led to enhanced feelings of patriotism. 62 per cent of New Zealanders feel a greater sense of national pride than they did before the crisis. Two weeks ago, this figure was 47 per cent.

Over nine in every 10 New Zealanders said they were doing what the Government had asked in order to slow down the spread of COVID-19.

• Covid19.govt.nz: The Government's official Covid-19 advisory website