Mat Woods: Destination Queenstown CEO says region needs more infrastructure for tourism goal

The Government's 2034 tourism target is to lift arrivals to 4.78 million, but a report for MBIE shows that this could require up to $3.5 billion in extra infrastructure.

Regions like Queenstown are already facing pressure on their infrastructure with Destination Queenstown and Lake Wanaka Tourism CEO Mat Woods saying they are 'bursting at the seams'. 

He told Andrew Dickens, "we're having to actually release treated wastewater into the Shotover River, which is far from ideal when you consider a 100% pure sort of image that we like to give our international visitors about New Zealand."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
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Speaker 2 (00:16):
Tourism. There's a new report out from mb into the
government's twenty thirty four tourism target. The goal is to
lift the rivals to four point seven eight million. Now,
that's one point one to three million more people than
come now. The report highlights that will then need three
point five billion dollars billion in extra infrastructure to cope

(00:37):
with those extra numbers. To cope with the demand, local
government would pick up thirty three percent of the cost.
That's between seven hundred and twenty eight million and one
point one billion. That's still you. You're a ratepayer and a taxpayer.
The fears the funding gap is already starting to threaten
the quality of tourism. So Matt Woods, as the CEO
Destination Queenstown and Lake Wanaka Tourism Boston, joins us this morning,

(01:01):
Good day, Matt.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
How are you yeah? Morning, Andrew? How are you good?

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Very good? Do we actually have the infrastructure to even
think about targets like four point seven eight million people
a year?

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Look, I think it's a really good question, and right
now you can feel particularly districts like Queenstown, Monica and McKenzie.
We really don't have the infrastructure and we're already sort
of investing at the seams and you can see some
of that, particularly in Queenstown if we think about the
recent sort of wastewater situation we have there where we're
having to actually release you know, treated wastewater into the

(01:33):
Shotover River, which is us my ideal when you consider
one hundred percent pure sort of image that we like
to give our international visitors about New Zealand.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
But is it even worth it for the government to
release these glossy sort of statements say, oh, yes, four
point seven eight million people up one million for right now,
it's going to be so good for the economy, but
not mentioned the fact that we can't do this unless
we spend three and a half bill.

Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, and I think that's a really good point. So,
I mean, for us, we support the government's approach to
wanting to grow tourism. At the moment, we know tourism
is the second largest export for New Zealand behind deary.
Can we actually grow exports in tourism? And I think
we've got to look at two things here, So We've
got two aspirations. One is the number of people and
the other is actually what the value of those exports are.
And so when we talk about exports of tourism, we're

(02:19):
talking about international visitors spending money here in New Zealand.
And so currently international visitors spend roughly about nine billion dollars.
The other goal is to lift that to nineteen billion.
So do you need to actually bring more visitors here
to lift that to nineteen billion? That's one question. The
other question is if we are going to bring more
people here, and even existing people, we need to ensure
that we deliver a great experience for the people that visit,

(02:42):
but also the people that live here, the residents as well.
And so can we benefit both in looking at a
mechanism to make sure that both the residents and the
visitors can have a great experience. And I think it's
super important to sort of think about the visitors coming
to New Zealand. At the moment, I think we're right
on that tipping point where a lot of our infrastructure
is actually well, we're either already tired or we've already

(03:04):
gone past the amount that we need. So we need
to get more infrastructure how do we get that invents
into that public infrastructure, particularly thinking about central government could
be around our roading particularly. And then if we think
about core services from local government, water and wastewater, and
if we think about particularly most core services from local government,
what are the funding mechanisms that local government actually has

(03:27):
to actually put that infrastructure in place? And so we've
really only got one at the moment, which is rates.
And if we think about places like Queenstown, Monika and
McKenzie that have a really small ratepayer base but a
high visitation. So if we think about Queenstown Lakes District Council,
there's roughly fifty thousand residents here but over three million
visitors a year. So you could say that's a good
problem because we have lots of visitation, But what's the

(03:49):
mechanism to ensure that we can actually fund that infrastructure
to deliver a great service for those visitors.

Speaker 2 (03:54):
So are you saying that the government's twenty thirty four
tourism target was not done with enough thought and enough
preparation about all the consequences and therefore probably needs to
be done in greater detail.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
I think actually what we're seeing is that it's a tough,
and there's actually quite a lot of work happening at
the moment around how do we deliver that. And I
think this report is a great example of we do
need to invest in infrastructure. So I think that thought
is still going into it. We're twenty thirty four, isn't tomorrow,
so we've got time to do it, but we need
to get on with it. We can't muck around and
we need to think about how do we fund that
infrastructure now?

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Matt, would I thank you so much for your time today.
Matt is the CEO of Destination Queenstown and like one
Aco tourism.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
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