Ahipara Horse Treks manager Selena Anderson says the lack of tourists during the pandemic has hit her small business hard. Photo / Supplied
Ahipara Horse Treks manager Selena Anderson says the lack of tourists during the pandemic has hit her small business hard. Photo / Supplied
Ahipara Horse Treks is currently scraping by but once New Zealand's international borders reopen next month the business will be back on track.
The Far North business is one of many looking forward to overseas tourists after the Kiwi school holiday season wrapped up with sales plummeting again.
On Wednesday,Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced vaccinated Australians could travel to New Zealand without isolating from 11.59pm on Tuesday, April 12.
Fully vaccinated travellers from about 60 visa-waiver countries would follow suit from May 1.
Ahipara Horse Treks manager Selena Anderson said the absence of overseas visitors in the past two years had hit her small business of 16 years - with one or two part-time employees - hard.
Ahipara Horse Treks is just scraping by while New Zealand's borders are shut. Photo / Supplied
Her experience was shared by many tourism operators across Northland.
"We still have 12 horses but we could upsize if overseas tourists returned. We've had a really short, sharp season which started earlier with heaps of Kiwi travellers which was cool but that finished as soon as the school holidays were over," Anderson said.
"Lucky to get a couple of horse trekking a week now but since I teach horse riding, that keeps us going.
"But the problem is the horses still have to be fed, they have to have their feet done every four weeks and teeth every year."
Anderson said many similar businesses folded during the Covid pandemic and she constantly saw horses being sold on Trade Me.
Northland Chamber of Commerce chief executive Steve Smith was pleased the border opening was brought forward.
"It's been a long time coming but thank goodness it's here."
However, Smith noted the opening coincided with the end of Northland's tourism season so attracting tourists could be difficult.
"... a lot of them might be thinking about destinations in the South Island. So I think it's up to Northland to put up a good case as to why they should come north.
"It's not too late, but we're going to have to work pretty hard to make the best of it."
Northland Inc general manager destination Tania Burt said open borders with Australia was important because the country was Northland's number one international visitor market by "quite a big margin".
"Australia presents a big proposition for Northland ... and then, of course, the other markets to follow as well.
"It's been a hard journey for so many people, sometimes we lose count and forget how long it's been."
Northland Inc general manager destination Tania Burt is looking forward to the return of overseas travellers for struggling Northland businesses. Photo / Supplied
Burt acknowledged Northlanders might feel concerned about tourists possibly bringing Covid with them, but she was impressed by the region's "resilience".
"We understand there might be a bit of hesitancy with everything that's going on, but people have chosen to come to our region, let's welcome them."
Focus Paihia founder and Salt Air chief executive Grant Harnish said it was great to "finally have some decisions made" that gave Northland businesses the ability to prepare for tourists.
"It's going to be slow to start, but at least people now have the opportunity to plan their travels for the coming summer season, which is the peak, and we're not sitting here till October to wait and see."
Will staff shortages burden businesses as tourists return?
There is some concern about how Northland tourism and hospitality businesses will manage more customers if staff shortages continue to worsen.
Harnish was optimistic. He said some businesses would not face shortages and some would.
"... it will be tricky, but we had to start somewhere ... that's not going to be the thing that stops it all happening, where there's a will there's a way."
Harnish said more feet through the door would help secure the jobs of Northland workers in the tourism industry.
"No one's going to employ people to work if the people aren't coming."
Focus Paihia founder and Salt Air chief executive Grant Harnish says it's good to finally have some assurance on when tourists will return. Photo / Jenny Ling
He and Burt both predicted Northland wouldn't experience massive tourist numbers the moment the borders reopened.
The return to pre-pandemic international visitor numbers would instead be a slow build.
"We don't expect the huge influx just overnight," Burt said. "But we do expect some of the visiting friends and relatives to return ... that hopefully will be a bit of a softer introduction before those purely coming from leisure travel arrived."
She said the biggest challenge would be "staffing up" for the arrival of visitors.
While New Zealand's tourism and hospitality industries called for Covid restrictions to be eased, staff shortages and supply chain issues have continued as Omicron surges.
Burt said those industries had "suffered from the spread of the virus" because of a "lack of access to workforces" or a potential lack of business because fewer people were travelling.
Smith said businesses were resilient and would find ways to balance the issue of persistent staff shortages.
"I think they would probably prefer to have ... more customers than they can handle, but you don't want those visitors having a poor experience.
"This an opportunity to gain revenue ... so we're just going to have to do what we can."
