The tourism recovery is steady but faces speed bumps. Video / NZ Herald
Today marks one year since New Zealand fully opened its borders, a time that has seen the industry become stronger and more reflective according to Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA).
On July 31, 2022, New Zealand reopened its borders fully to all visitors, which allowed tourism’s recovery process to properly begin.
TIA chief executive Rebecca Ingram said the positive impacts of this progress were not confined to the tourism industry.
“Tourism is not an island - it is connected to so many parts of our economy and our communities. The return of visitors made a difference to many New Zealanders,” she said.
Rebecca Ingram Tourism Industry Aotearoa CEO. Photo / George Heard
The previous year had not been easy for the industry. However, those who could meet challenges with innovation and reflection have weathered the year well.
According to Les Morgan from Sudima Hotels, seasonality had greater extremes this past year, with more people during peak season and fewer in the off-season.
“It has been challenging operationally in terms of recruiting and retaining staff and balancing that against the strong seasonality of 2023 so far,” he said.
Sudima Kaikoura is a new 4.5 star hotel, which opened in October 2022. Photo / Supplied
Fortunately, the previous few years gave them time to rethink business strategies and “understand what’s important” to the company.
This meant domestic and corporate markets as well as trying new technologies.
“Sudima is, for example, experimenting with robots in restaurants, and we’re about to trial them in room service and housekeeping,” Morgan said.
Shayne Forrest from Waikato’s Hobbiton movie set also saw the last year as a time for change.
“You can always enhance and improve, so rather than go back to the same old, same old, we’ve looked at opportunities to improve so we can make sure we’re giving the best experience possible for our people,” he said.
Shayne Forrest, GM of tourism for Hobbiton Movie Set. Photo / Alex Braae
The results had been positive, he added, and people were returning “much quicker than we anticipated”.
At GO Rentals, James Dalglish said the company became “incredibly lean” during the worst of the pandemic, which has resulted in lost institutional knowledge.
“Probably the biggest challenge off the back the pandemic has been workforce,” he said. “When you remove two thirds of your staff, and in our case many of them had been with us for 5,10 or 15 years, you lose a whole lot of IP.”
GO Rentals. Image / Supplied.
Dalglish said there had not been a way to avoid this but like Hobbiton, the company had made the most of embracing innovation, not just for the benefit of the business but the environment too.
“There’s a fantastic opportunity ahead in terms of moving from sustainability to regeneration,” he said.
“For our company, it means a much greater portion of clean cars across both EV and hybrid options and enabling our customers to undertake greener journeys through Aotearoa.”
TIA’s Ingram said the second summer of recovery was looking good but they were focused on the bigger picture too.
“We have our eyes set on the longer term also, with much work underway to do our part to make positive impacts on the environment and communities we are part of,” she said.
