Kate Hawkesby: We're still too complacent when it comes to fixing the tourism sector

 

My daughter’s in Queenstown with a friend and her family at the moment, and she's been snapchatting me pictures of all the shop and cafe windows, with all the 'STAFF WANTED' signs everywhere. 

I haven't forgotten about the plight of Queenstown, because we still hear regularly from many business owners down there, still exasperated. 

And many of the visitors who return from there have tales to tell. All the same tale sadly. 

That it’s a gut-wrenching time of heartbroken owner operators struggling to get by with no staff. 

For many who are repeat visitors or bach owners there, it’s sadness at what’s become of the place. A once bustling vibrant city with an international feel. 

Now it’s the same old story all the time - late check ins because rooms aren’t ready, the lack of housekeeping services in general, the lack of staff, the inexperience of the staff they do have, the shut shops and the closed cafes. 

None of this is new, but the fact it’s still going on is heart breaking. It just hasn’t been fixed yet. They’re still waiting and waiting and waiting, and crickets are chirping. 

Someone wrote to me just yesterday about their time in Queenstown last week. They said they’d attended a conference there and it was abundantly clear that thousands of employees were still required for the hospitality/hotel scene. They mentioned all the ‘staff wanted’ signs everywhere. 

Cafes and hotels had delays, their room wasn't ready until 4pm and when it was they were told it wouldn’t be serviced. 

On top of that they said there are still massive amounts of work being done on the roads and walkways, including along the lake front. 

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They said you couldn’t get into some of the shops because of it and one whole block of public toilets was closed, putting huge pressure on the one remaining block. Which as this emailer pointed out, is all well and good for relaxed Kiwi holidaymakers who might not mind putting up with a bit of inconvenience. But will international tourists be so patient? 

It’s classically Kiwi to be all ‘no worries mate’ about it, but what if you’ve travelled a long way to be there and paid a lot of money for not a lot of service? 

The café workers were doing their best under trying circumstances but with the buzz of visitors returning, so too does service need to keep up. And it can’t if there’s just literally no one to do the serving. 

I think the Government’s still moving too slowly, the immigration department seems unable to keep pace – despite hiring all those extra people to clear backlogs. We still have a backlog of 36,000 international tourists waiting for visitor visas. 

We only just opened up the country to more chefs, by reducing the qualification component, and it’s a gamble whether they get here in time or even want to come. 

So the punish for places like Queenstown is on the one hand, great to have borders open to welcome back tourists, but they’re still hamstrung on the other hand, by an immigration department that can’t process enough visas to let all the tourists in who want to come and who can’t seem to fast track enough workers into key areas where they’re still crying out for them.

So it's a real shame it's still so under staffed. It seems unfair, and it's not for lack of trying.

Kate Hawkesby is a political broadcaster on Newstalk ZB - her articles can be seen HERE.