Obviously the recessionary state this place has been in and the carnage it has caused, and continues to cause, although they are all ultimately tied to the one major event.
But tourism stands out as the most clear example of something we had and something we have now lost.
Not literally. They still arrive, but not like they used to and not even close. Something happened between closing the borders and opening them back up.
Initially it was a time thing and, apparently, it was a capacity thing because the planes weren't back yet.
But four years on, what some of us saw a couple of years ago everyone now sees, and the truth has been laid bare.
We are simply not up to it the way we once were. Bits are, like Queenstown and the general area, back plus some, and that’s awesome. But nowhere else is.
We are marooned at about 80% and that doesn’t count the gap between the 80% and the 100%+ it could have been, should have been, and all those tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people who should have been arriving in these past few years. They went elsewhere.
Let's be blunt - it's not like the world hasn’t been travelling, they're just not travelling here.
Enter the new entry fee to the country. It triples and it'll be $100. Industry operators don’t like it, and I don't blame them.
Doing it tough is hard enough without heaping more cost on, but I assume the Government took that into account.
They defend it by comparing us to the fees of other countries. But isn't that the point? We aren't other countries and the numbers show it.
I still want to argue $100 should not be a barrier. If you spent three grand getting here, is $100 what tips you over?
But here is the inescapable truth - tourism, along with dairy, was the golden goose. And if we didn't wreck it, we irreparably harmed it.
I don’t see how making it more expensive improves our plight.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
Initially it was a time thing and, apparently, it was a capacity thing because the planes weren't back yet.
But four years on, what some of us saw a couple of years ago everyone now sees, and the truth has been laid bare.
We are simply not up to it the way we once were. Bits are, like Queenstown and the general area, back plus some, and that’s awesome. But nowhere else is.
We are marooned at about 80% and that doesn’t count the gap between the 80% and the 100%+ it could have been, should have been, and all those tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people who should have been arriving in these past few years. They went elsewhere.
Let's be blunt - it's not like the world hasn’t been travelling, they're just not travelling here.
Enter the new entry fee to the country. It triples and it'll be $100. Industry operators don’t like it, and I don't blame them.
Doing it tough is hard enough without heaping more cost on, but I assume the Government took that into account.
They defend it by comparing us to the fees of other countries. But isn't that the point? We aren't other countries and the numbers show it.
I still want to argue $100 should not be a barrier. If you spent three grand getting here, is $100 what tips you over?
But here is the inescapable truth - tourism, along with dairy, was the golden goose. And if we didn't wreck it, we irreparably harmed it.
I don’t see how making it more expensive improves our plight.
Mike Hosking is a New Zealand television and radio broadcaster. He currently hosts The Mike Hosking Breakfast show on NewstalkZB on weekday mornings - where this article was sourced.
2 comments:
Maori language on our TV and media wrecked tourism . We mostly do not know what the Maori gabble is so how would tourists know . Why would you travel to somewhere with unintelligent gabble pretending to be friendly with a cannibals haka ? Ring Hone Hato for the ambulance . Really the maori called St Johns that at the signing of the WT . Yeah Right
Or perhaps we had a high level of low level tourism that can no longer afford to travel the same way. Mike's world can still afford it, the Queenstown numbers being an example, but for many the economic outlook is far from rosey.
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