Labour weekend usually comes with the promise of summer. It’s a welcome relief after months without an extra day off and a great chance to indulge in that time-honoured Kiwi tradition of getting away.
I thought we all rushed for holiday spots over Labour weekend but this time around something was off.
There were no problems finding somewhere to stay. The “no vacancy sign” was rare. I saw only one on my travels north. The cafes weren’t full, and the roads, normally crazy, weren’t too bad.
I spent some time around the Whangārei Heads and went as far as Ocean Beach.
It wasn’t busy, carparks were no issue, toilets had no queues and the staff at the local shops I visited said it was far too quiet for a long weekend. They said it sadly.
The Whangārei restaurant where we had my son’s birthday on Saturday night must have been thankful we showed up because, apart from two guys at the bar briefly, I saw no one else. Not one other table of guests all night.
How they made money that night I have no idea. How they will stay afloat long-term will require a miracle. I saw five staff. Did they make a loss for the night? Probably.
As I grabbed a few scooters for me and my teenage boys to shoot around the Town Basin I thought how damn eerie and dark it was. A few people were in another local eatery but it wasn’t packed and others had already closed their doors, despite the early hour.
The real surprise came on Monday when I travelled through the Hokianga and discovered the stunning Copthorne Hotel in Omapere, you’ll know the one, had closed – shut down until Christmas.
This is in one of New Zealand’s most magnificent settings - absolute beachfront, an iconic wharf, huge picture-postcard sand dunes.
Five years ago, it hosted hundreds for a Northland wine and food festival. I was there. It was not only pumping with locals, scores of out-of-towners were there for a good time.
Now, you probably wouldn’t bother trying. The people aren’t holidaying anymore.
The Reserve Bank is winning. We haven’t got the disposable income to afford a great Kiwi long weekend. That hurts everyone.
The Covid hangover continues to affect us.
The inflation sledgehammer is brutal. It doesn’t help with morale that you seemingly have to extend your mortgage to go on a short break here in Godzone.
If we do travel, maybe overseas is better bang for your buck.
New Zealand is a rip-off. My best mate, who now lives in Ireland, is horrified at our supermarket prices every time he returns.
Nothing is cheap, it seems there is nowhere you can get a bargain, and last weekend, most of us appeared to stay home because of it.
Why pay $400 one way to Christchurch when I can get a cheap ticket to Rarotonga for $500 return?
Yes, we have some good sights and great attractions but so does the rest of the world. And, remember, we are miles away.
Are we really good enough anymore? Are we worth the effort?
We are ignorant and arrogant beyond belief if we think we have the most beautiful and best tourism offerings worldwide.
Welcome to New Zealand where the first $100 we fleece you of is the taxi ride from the airport into Auckland city which could take an hour in crawling traffic. Forget rail, that’s been cancelled under the new government.
Want to see Waiheke Island? That will be $50-$59 return at peak and that’s just the ferry fare. A return ferry to Rangitoto Island, a mere 25 minutes, is now more than $50 per adult and the timetable, if you can call it that, gives few options.
Auckland’s domestic airport is officially a national embarrassment. A decent jet blast should take it out. Hopefully.
Meanwhile airline prices have gone back up, service standards are down and cancellations due to weather events are common.
But price matters. It’s the difference between going or staying home.
With summer close, I was checking out camping grounds last week and, shock, horror, was stunned at the cost. No wonder Kiwis, if they are holidaying, are doing it overseas.
Last year, I paid $50 a night for my son and I to camp north of Auckland. That was a piece of lawn in a paddock, a non-powered site, they call it. Fifty bucks! By the time we had four-minute hot showers, it was $60 a day.
Another campground is $25 per adult per night for a non-powered site with a maximum of eight people staying. So eight in a tent is $200 a night, no power? Surely not. That adds up to $1400 for a one-week stay. No wonder families are struggling to go camping now. I can’t help but feel some operators are making up for lost time, taking the mickey, jacking up prices so high that a domestic holiday for many Kiwis is simply out of reach.
Latest data show international and domestic travellers spent $26.5 billion in New Zealand last year. Before Covid it was $41.4 billion.
Tourism used to be our number one earner. So how do we get the overseas travellers back when we are so far away and cost a packet?
With great difficulty and a huge advertising campaign.
Tourism New Zealand, according to Gavin Oliver, owner of Waiheke Island’s EcoZip Adventures, spent up large marketing New Zealand across North America over the past 18 months and it worked.
Americans and a whole bunch of US airlines have made the trip Down Under but the numbers of forward bookings have dwindled as the advertising spend dries up.
Tourism New Zealand had it right, however the budget needed to be rolled over again with a new campaign. But it was a one and done.
I think we need to work out what sort of tourism we want but we need a mix and we need them back in big numbers.
High end? Yes. Backpackers? Yes. Kiwis travelling domestically? Yes, if they can afford it!
We must get them back, but we won’t by resting on our laurels thinking we are world class.
We need to show them.
Tourism is about always telling our story, always selling ourselves domestically and internationally, never stopping.
In short, tourism is a bit confused right now. It needs a coherent strategy, it needs money, it needs staff, it needs to make itself attractive to foreigners and accessible to Kiwis.
And it needs a new minister of tourism who understands the sector and pushes for better outcomes.
It’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s the PM.
Christopher Luxon ran an airline. He now runs a country.
He gets tourism.
The first outcome is to match our pre-Covid earnings from the sector. We are $15 billion short of where we once sat. There’s an outcome waiting to be achieved. Is the captain up for it?
Luxon has just said there will be no long summer break for his own MPs. He expects them to work later this year and start earlier in 2024. He says there is much work to be done and it’s no different to the typical Kiwi Christmas break. So while actual holidays aren’t his priority, the business of them could well be.
