High travel costs: Tourism leader’s advice to Kiwis wanting to see the country

Rebecca Ingram, Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive. Photo / Brady Dyer

Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Rebecca Ingram says the industry is “incredibly grateful” to the Kiwis who helped keep many businesses afloat during the pandemic.

In the face of criticism of high travel costs for Kiwis in this country, Ingram said it was important that New Zealanders can enjoy their own nation.

“The signals I’m getting from my operators for the upcoming summer are that they see really good demand from New Zealanders,” she said.

“My expectation is that a business will price fairly based on the individual circumstances.”

She said it was complex and expensive to run a business at the moment.

And for those tourism businesses that have taken on some debt over the past couple of years to support them, that debt servicing cost was also pretty high.

Ingram said some businesses were thinking about differential pricing, where they charge differently for a New Zealander, as opposed to someone who may be coming from overseas. Kiwis could also try to negotiate a deal.

“I think is really important to get in touch with those tourism businesses, tell them that you want to come - and book ahead,” said Ingram.

The industry was “incredibly grateful” to New Zealanders who supported it during the pandemic when borders were closed.

“New Zealanders just swept in behind us and did something new and we will never forget that.”

Tourism Industry Aotearoa launched Tourism 2050 A Blueprint for Impact at its summit in Wellington this week.

It is pushing for more sustainable funding of infrastructure and marketing to support the sector, which it says is on track to earn $50 billion by 2030.

Funding for Tourism New Zealand’s marketing work overseas had been cut and the Tourism Innovation Fund, launched a year ago with $52 million, had been slashed to $12m.

The industry wants a bigger share of the $4b-plus the Government collects in GST and levies on tourism spending.

“The historic and structural lack of sustainable industry funding mechanisms has meant there has been persistent under-investment in many aspects of the tourism industry, including infrastructure, destination management and development, data and research, product development, network design, quality improvement, capability building, and others,” the document says.

Grant Bradley has been working at the Herald since 1993. He is the Business Herald’s deputy editor and covers aviation and tourism.