February 4, 2025 • 22 mins
The Government wants to see tourism numbers increase as part of its economic growth push.
As part of that push, the existing visitor visa scheme will be tweaked to include welcoming ‘digital nomads’.
That will allow tourists from visa waiver countries up to nine months to travel around New Zealand while still working for their overseas employer.
The scheme has already been greeted with expressions of interest from overseas, but the introduction of digital nomad visas in some countries has contributed to a local backlash against tourism.
Today on The Front Page, Strategic Director of the Hotel Council Aotearoa, James Doolan, joins us to discuss the state of tourism in this country, and Spanish journalist Marta Bausells discusses the issues faced in Barcelona as a result of the scheme.
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You can read more about this and other stories in the New Zealand Herald, online at nzherald.co.nz, or tune in to news bulletins across the NZME network.
Host: Chelsea Daniels
Sound Engineer/Producer: Richard Martin
Producer: Ethan Sills
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Yoda.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The government
wants to see tourism numbers increase as part of its
economic growth push. As part of that push, the existing
visitor visa scheme will be tweaked to include welcoming in
(00:28):
digital nomads that'll allow tourists from visa waiver countries up
to nine months to travel around New Zealand while still working.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
For their overseas employer.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
The scheme has already been greeted with expressions of interest
from overseas, but the introduction of digital nomad visas in
some countries has contributed to local backlash against tourists. We'll
hear more about how the scheme is working in Spain
from journalists their Marta Balcelles, but first today on the
Front Page, Strategic director of the Hotel Council Altieroa, James
(01:02):
Dillon joins us to discuss the state.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Of tourism in New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
James figures from Tourism New Zealand show that tourist arrivals
from all countries remains at eighty six point three percent
of pre COVID levels.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Why do you think this number has struggled to move.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
It's a complicated problem to unpick. But as soon as
we closed our international boarders as a result of the
battle against COVID, it was always going to be a marathon,
not a sprint, and Hotel Council Al tier Roh has
said there would not be a v shaped recovery. So
winning tourists back to New Zealand, attracting them here involves
(01:50):
a number of different interventions that all need to be made.
Frankly speaking, New Zealand probably hasn't done enough to lay
out the welcome Matt and huss It's hard to get
tourists back here after we closed.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Our borders, right, so what do we need to do.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
We can look overseas at some of the initiatives that
have been carried out by other countries and we can
ask ourselves whether those would work in New Zealand and
implement some of them. To be honest, I mean, call
me Captain obvious, but if you shut down business, and
that's what we did with international tourism, then you probably
have to dial up marketing to win back that business
(02:27):
when you reopen. So ten years ago New Zealand's national
tourism marketing body, that's Tourism New Zealand, had about one
hundred and ten million New Zealand dollars to spend on
international marketing. Fast forward to today and that number has
actually gone down a little bit. It's about one hundred
million today. Meanwhile, we've had huge inflation and the New
(02:48):
Zealand dollar has weakened by about twenty five percent against
the US. So in summary, over a decade, despite the
minor inconvenience of a global pandemic, we've actually reduced our
investment in attracting people to New Zealand for a holiday,
for business and for other reasons.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Are you pleased with the government's focus now on trying
to increase tourism numbers and bringing in this digital nomad scheme.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yeah? Absolutely, because it is one hundred percent the right
thing to do. In the hotel industry, we have two
factors we look at when you're looking at performance all
the time, and it makes logical sense, but it's worth
talking through for your listeners. Again, when you're trying to
maximize returns at our hotel, you need to get the
right mix of occupancy. That's the percentage of rooms that
(03:34):
are filled and room rate. There's no point being one
hundred percent filled if you're only charging ten dollars a night.
There's no point charging ten thousand dollars a night and
not selling any rooms. You've got to maximize that those
two factors. Now, the strongest position is to sort out
occupancy first and then you can drive rate and that
(03:55):
makes logical sense the laws of supply and demand. So
New Zealanders, as you said, at the outset, we're hovering
around eighty six percent of pre COVID international visitor arrivals.
In reality, we need to get ourselves to one hundred
and twenty or one hundred and thirty percent of pre
COVID visitor arrivals. And that's because we've built new hotels
(04:17):
and open new hotels. We've built new bars and restaurants.
We've built three big convention centers, and to be at
par we need to be about one hundred and thirty
percent of pre COVID visitor arrivals.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, I remember the Labor government had a big focus
on that higher end tourism, those who would come here
and spend big rather than travel on the cheap Stewart
Nash was quite anti freedom campers from memory for a while,
there was that the wrong approach. Do you think or
do you think that's contributed to us struggling recovery that switch.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I think there was some unfortunate consequences of phrasing it
that way. You know, high value, low volume. I don't
think that's a sensible phrase at all. Every business tries
to maximize returns, and hotels, for example, are dynamically priced,
meaning that the price changes depending on demand every day.
No hotel intentionally leaves money on the table. But New
(05:11):
Zealand is not a cheap destination to travel to. We're
a long flight away. Our domestic airfares certainly aren't cheap
at the moment, and no traveler to New Zealand, no
international visitor, is kind of low value. People backpacking and
camping around the country spend money throughout our regions and
that's an incredibly valuable thing. So solving tourism growing demand,
(05:36):
the key issues have always been seasonality and dispersal. Seasonality,
we've got hotels, particularly in winter, that are emptier than
they should be, and airports that are emptier than they
should be, and convention centers that are emptier than they
should be, so we need to do more to drive
people to come to New Zealand in the shoulder seasons
(05:57):
and low seasons. That seasonality disperse is moving people around
the country. We don't just want people going to Queenstown.
So let's focus more on our emptier city centers. Let's
drive people into Auckland, Wellington and other urban centers because
New Zealanders would be delighted to have those urban centers
busy with tourists.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Visiting New Zealand just got more expensive. The government announced
Tuesday it will nearly triple entry fees for tourists to
one hundred New Zealand dollars or sixty two dollars twenty US.
Authorities argued it would ensure visitors contributed to public services
and high quality experiences while visiting the country. Matt Doosey
is the New Zealand Minister for Tourism and Hospitality.
Speaker 5 (06:43):
What we want to do is shift some of the
costs from the taxpayer to the visitor, and ultimately what
we want to do is grow tourism. We've got an
ambitious target to double our exports as a country over
the next ten years.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
And tourists now have to pay one hundred bucks at
the border. That made international headlines.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Do you reckon? That's a bit off putting.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Again, the timing of that announcement when other countries were
reducing visa costs or introducing visa free travel, that perhaps
could have been better, But that decision has been made.
Now the key issue is how do we use that
one hundred dollars per international traveler to help the tourist
industry and the New Zealand economy recover as fast as possible.
(07:30):
And again, the reason for wanting more tourists in is
because tourists massively overcontribute in tax that they pay relative
to what they use. All the GST they pay on
all the spending they do in New Zealand is way
more than the amount of money that gets reinvested back
into tourists. So the IVL at one hundred New Zealand
(07:53):
dollars for many international travelers is not out of line
with some other countries. So how do we use that
one hundred New Zealand dollars IVL to attract more international
tourists back to New Zealand quickly so we can fill
up our bars, our restaurants, our retailers and our shops
that rely on free spending international travelers. Now that messaging
(08:17):
we're getting out of the government now is a willingness
to really dial those efforts up. And that's a very
very good thing.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
So what's best case scenario here, What like an international
campaign to get people to Gore or something.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Well, I'm sure the good folk of Gore would love
more international travelers coming to their spot. International campaigns are
certainly part of it. But remember I talked about seasonality
and dispersal, and that opens up the idea of what
tourism experts called mice meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions. A
tourist to New Zealand is not just a backpacker or
(08:54):
someone hiking through our national parks. If you have three
thousand Chinese Amway executives in the CBD of Auckland, those
three thousand people are tourists as well. So some of
this can be a specific campaign to drive more Australians
to New Zealand quickly, because Australia is a market that
hasn't fully recovered yet. That is one intervention we could
(09:18):
do now to help tourism. But we could also look at,
say three fairly new international standard convention centers, and we
could think deeply about how we activate those three wonderful
urban assets in the long term to make sure New
Zealand also has an outstanding reputation for mice rather than
(09:38):
just an outstanding reputation for the beauty of our landscapes.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
When it comes to the digital nomad visa, there are
places overseas that have seen like cultural shifts, you know,
corner stores turning into generic coffee shops, that kind of thing.
I guess we're in a bit of a different situation
here in New Zealand. Hey, the cultural diversity in Auckland,
for example, I bet won't be as impacted as the
one in a tiny town in the Spanish Alps for example.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Hey, look, I agree with you, and I think also
the nomad visa was kind of filling a hole. I
think it started with a YouTuber who put out a
positive tweet about New Zealand. And of course the YouTuber
gets gets paid for their podcast appearance, unlike hotel company
executives like me. But yeah, you know, he put out
a podcast and that was technically a breach of his
(10:22):
visa conditions. So I think what they've done is they've said, hey,
that kind of thing is okay. In Spain. As I
understand it, there were tax advantages to be on this
separate visa called a digital nomad visa, and you could
stay for up to five years. New Zealand's not doing that.
We're just clarifying that people who are on visitor visas
(10:43):
in New Zealand can pull out the laptop and do
some work. And I think that's clearly a good thing,
but it's not going to fill the gap and demand
some of these other interventions. You and I talked about
what's needed to move us from eighty seven percent of
pre COVID visitor arrivals two one hundred and thirty hotels
today in New Zealand are about ten points of occupancy,
(11:06):
ten percentage points emptier than they should be. And there
are about thirty five thousand hotel rooms in New Zealand.
So that's just hotels, that's not motels and short term
rental accommodation. And so you know, ten percentage points emptier
than they should be means three and a half thousand
more tourists we could easily handle, or ten Boeing aircraft
(11:28):
could could be handled very very comfortably with the existing hotels.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Thanks for joining us, James.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
You're very welcome. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
Justin.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
We're now joined from Barcelona by freelance writer Marta Bufsels
to discuss how tourism and digital nomads have been leaving
a trail of issues across the country. When did this
backlash over the I guess over tourism start in Barcelona
(12:10):
because it feels like it's been going on there for
quite some time now.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
Yeah, it's been going on for about a decade probably,
but the real huge backlash we're seeing now started around
the pandemic, or it increased with the pandemic, because well,
I should say, obviously tourism stopped in twenty twenty and
with all the lockdowns, but then afterwards when things opened up,
it sky rocketed and they saw record numbers. The pressure
(12:35):
is felt in several specific places in Spain and not
in others. And I live in Barcelona, which is the
example I know best, and it's you know, where I
grew up as well, and I've seen the absolutely huge
difference over the decades. It's a city that cannot cope
with the mass tourism it's been getting. It was a problem,
you know, ten years ago, but since twenty twenty one,
(12:57):
twenty twenty two, it's been really extreme.
Speaker 7 (13:00):
It causes a lot of problems.
Speaker 6 (13:01):
And then the digital nomad situation was probably you know,
the cherry on top or just the thing that made
rage spill over.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah, how drastically has the city changed as a result
of all of this tourism and the digital nomad visa
very drastically.
Speaker 6 (13:17):
I think the biggest impact has been on housing because
it's not a big city, it doesn't have room to grow,
and it was already very very dense. One of the
dnsists in Europe, and rents have increased sixty percent in
a decade, and salaries, of course have not increased. In fact,
there's huge inflation and you know, the cost of living
(13:38):
has risen for everybody. But tourism was an issue, and well,
not tourism, over tourism, mass tourism, airbnb sort of gentrification,
which is a you know, is an issue in many
many cities around the world, but here it's a bit
of a pressure cooker in the sense that there isn't
that much housing. The salaries that digital nos tend to
(14:00):
have are very very high, and they pay twice three
times what you know what an already expensive rent literally
three years ago. They work for wealthier sort of for
wealthy companies, for wealthier economies. They already arrived with a
really huge income that doesn't compare to most people in
(14:21):
the city. So it's a case of extreme gentrification, and
it's a case of locals feeling like they're being pushed out.
There's a huge protest going on right now around an eviction.
Speaker 7 (14:33):
That is planned.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
An investment fund bought an entire building, and little by little,
when you know, when when people's rent expired, they evicted them,
and they're trying to just make a lot of money
from from just renting these flats for you know, five
times what the rents used to be, and they're trying
to evict a particular neighbor right now, and there are
protests on that street every day. People are you know,
(14:56):
sleeping intents in order to be there in the morning.
Speaker 7 (14:58):
And stop the eviction.
Speaker 6 (15:00):
And this is happening in the center of the city,
in a very middle class neighborhood. And this is quite
telling because what's happening with this extreme amounts of tourism
and essentially very wealthy tourists choosing to live here, and
more than doubling the rents, is that it's now affecting
the middle.
Speaker 8 (15:21):
Class when they VEX two, four or even a single person.
Like we always say, if they touch one of us,
(15:43):
they touch all of us, and we will always be
by the side.
Speaker 6 (15:56):
That Barcelona has an issue with access to house and
astronomical rents, but a lot of that is about sort
of turning flats into short term rents. What I mean
is eleven month rents. The problem seems to be more
focused on, as I say, digital nomads or just wealthy
workers from richer countries just choosing to come here for
(16:19):
the lifestyle. The other big issue is the cultural impact
of this. But yeah, choosing to come here for the
lifestyle and then paying you know, four times what a
normal local rent would be, or like an average local
rent would be, because that is so much more profitable
to I don't know if it's landlords or huge investment
funds or whatever, they try to have these eleven month rents.
(16:41):
So it's housing, it's not quite the it's not quite
the weekend stay. Where the focus is now is this
eleven month thing, because that's a loophole the law doesn't
allow rental contracts for less than leases for less than
five years, Like that's what you get when you rent
a flat at least five years, but they have a
loophole where they can make it eleven months less than
(17:03):
a year. It's a different sort of law, and that's
what they're doing there basically.
Speaker 7 (17:07):
I mean, as is the case in the.
Speaker 6 (17:08):
Street I mentioned earlier, they're evicting someone who's lived there
for decades to turn it into a you know, less
than a year rental situation.
Speaker 7 (17:16):
So it's slightly different.
Speaker 6 (17:17):
It's for people living here, not so much tourists, but
it's the digital normach sort of situation that's very new
and that that has risen rent because we had or
the city had, you know, mass tourism in twenty fifteen
and rents were relatively relatively stable. I say relatively, you know,
(17:38):
Airbnb was a huge issue, but this seems on another scale.
I mean, the sixty percent increase is mind boggling, and
it's it's being you know, strongly felt by everybody. I mean,
you can't, Yeah, it's it's very anxiety inducing to look at.
Speaker 7 (17:54):
What's for rent out there. It's just impossible.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
This line stuck out for me. In your British Vogue piece,
you said, anyone who treats a foreign city as their
personal playground isn't adding anything to the mixed beyond cultural imperialism.
Can you explain to me what the cultural impact of
so many people coming into Barcelona is.
Speaker 6 (18:17):
Absolutely, I mean, this is I think just an example
of the gentrification happening in so many different places and
also the flattening of a lot of cultures that's happening
on social media, and you know, as a product of
the Internet, so it's not unique to hear there is
some of you know, what's been talked about as the
generic coffee shop phenomenon that you know, a lot of
(18:39):
places now look like like establishments that could be in
any city in the world. They look exactly the same
as something you could find in Melbourne or in London.
Speaker 7 (18:48):
But that's probably you know, just also because of the
Internet and just where where we're at.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
But I said that because there's a strong sense from
locals that they are sort of background, you know, background
extras to somebody else's adventure or life. This is how
we I would say, many of us often feel I
lived in London for over a decade, and I've you know,
spent a lot of time in the US, so I
(19:15):
recognize a lot of the conversations, you know, I hear
in coffee shops or on the street. I hear a
lot of Americans talking about buying houses or about their
pretty luxurious lifestyle here, and I hear a lot of
Brits and I have nothing, you know, like, I just
recognize the conversations, and I I hear them talk about
their lifestyle basically, which is luxurious because obviously it's cheaper
(19:37):
to them than their home countries are. And it just
it's something that i've I was reading about San Francisco
the other day and something you know, similar was being said,
and it sort of erases a lot of the diversity.
Speaker 7 (19:51):
I just want to be very clear that this is it's.
Speaker 6 (19:53):
Almost the opposite of diversity, because I think this city
has always been open to anyone who you know, to immigration,
to especially to refugees. You know, it's been very open,
and diversity only makes it richer, and it was getting
more and more diverse and more interesting and more. I
don't know, it's open, it's always it's always felt like that,
(20:13):
but this is, this is almost I don't know, it
feels extremely different and I think that, Yeah, the word imperialism.
Speaker 7 (20:20):
Has been used.
Speaker 6 (20:22):
It was like a tongue in cheek to clarify, but
it's sometimes talked about as more of a colonial attitude.
You know, how some people just use the world as
they as their playground.
Speaker 7 (20:34):
It's just so palpable.
Speaker 6 (20:35):
I mean, we have two official languages here and one
one is Catalan, and of course it's it's an endangered language,
so people care about you know, people care about it,
and it's already it's already not doing great sometimes, you know,
it's it's a language, yeah, that is close to a
lot of people's heart, and they speak it and we're
pretty used to a lot of people not speaking it.
Speaker 7 (20:57):
But a lot of digital normals just don't even tried Spanish.
They just they just speak in English.
Speaker 6 (21:04):
They come into a bakery or whatever, and they just
expect to speak English. And not everybody is like that,
but there's, you know, countless examples of this kind of attitude.
Speaker 7 (21:15):
You just kind of see it everywhere.
Speaker 6 (21:16):
It's tricky to say, you know, because you don't want
to generalize, but it's also pretty obvious when a lot of.
Speaker 9 (21:22):
Just very unique neighborhood shops have closed down and they
are now coffee shops or whatever, or yoga studios or
co working spaces with all the signage in English and.
Speaker 7 (21:34):
Again like you could be in any of their city.
Speaker 6 (21:36):
And it's just it is sad because a lot of
those establishments made the city unique, you know, they were
part of the character.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Thanks for joining us, my pleasure, Thank you for having me.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at endsid.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Herald, dot co dot m Z.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin,
who is also a sound engineer.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look
behind the headlines.
Yoda.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The government
wants to see tourism numbers increase as part of its
economic growth push. As part of that push, the existing
visitor visa scheme will be tweaked to include welcoming in
(00:28):
digital nomads that'll allow tourists from visa waiver countries up
to nine months to travel around New Zealand while still working.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
For their overseas employer.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
The scheme has already been greeted with expressions of interest
from overseas, but the introduction of digital nomad visas in
some countries has contributed to local backlash against tourists. We'll
hear more about how the scheme is working in Spain
from journalists their Marta Balcelles, but first today on the
Front Page, Strategic director of the Hotel Council Altieroa, James
(01:02):
Dillon joins us to discuss the state.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Of tourism in New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
James figures from Tourism New Zealand show that tourist arrivals
from all countries remains at eighty six point three percent
of pre COVID levels.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Why do you think this number has struggled to move.
Speaker 3 (01:26):
It's a complicated problem to unpick. But as soon as
we closed our international boarders as a result of the
battle against COVID, it was always going to be a marathon,
not a sprint, and Hotel Council Al tier Roh has
said there would not be a v shaped recovery. So
winning tourists back to New Zealand, attracting them here involves
(01:50):
a number of different interventions that all need to be made.
Frankly speaking, New Zealand probably hasn't done enough to lay
out the welcome Matt and huss It's hard to get
tourists back here after we closed.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Our borders, right, so what do we need to do.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
We can look overseas at some of the initiatives that
have been carried out by other countries and we can
ask ourselves whether those would work in New Zealand and
implement some of them. To be honest, I mean, call
me Captain obvious, but if you shut down business, and
that's what we did with international tourism, then you probably
have to dial up marketing to win back that business
(02:27):
when you reopen. So ten years ago New Zealand's national
tourism marketing body, that's Tourism New Zealand, had about one
hundred and ten million New Zealand dollars to spend on
international marketing. Fast forward to today and that number has
actually gone down a little bit. It's about one hundred
million today. Meanwhile, we've had huge inflation and the New
(02:48):
Zealand dollar has weakened by about twenty five percent against
the US. So in summary, over a decade, despite the
minor inconvenience of a global pandemic, we've actually reduced our
investment in attracting people to New Zealand for a holiday,
for business and for other reasons.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Are you pleased with the government's focus now on trying
to increase tourism numbers and bringing in this digital nomad scheme.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Yeah? Absolutely, because it is one hundred percent the right
thing to do. In the hotel industry, we have two
factors we look at when you're looking at performance all
the time, and it makes logical sense, but it's worth
talking through for your listeners. Again, when you're trying to
maximize returns at our hotel, you need to get the
right mix of occupancy. That's the percentage of rooms that
(03:34):
are filled and room rate. There's no point being one
hundred percent filled if you're only charging ten dollars a night.
There's no point charging ten thousand dollars a night and
not selling any rooms. You've got to maximize that those
two factors. Now, the strongest position is to sort out
occupancy first and then you can drive rate and that
(03:55):
makes logical sense the laws of supply and demand. So
New Zealanders, as you said, at the outset, we're hovering
around eighty six percent of pre COVID international visitor arrivals.
In reality, we need to get ourselves to one hundred
and twenty or one hundred and thirty percent of pre
COVID visitor arrivals. And that's because we've built new hotels
(04:17):
and open new hotels. We've built new bars and restaurants.
We've built three big convention centers, and to be at
par we need to be about one hundred and thirty
percent of pre COVID visitor arrivals.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, I remember the Labor government had a big focus
on that higher end tourism, those who would come here
and spend big rather than travel on the cheap Stewart
Nash was quite anti freedom campers from memory for a while,
there was that the wrong approach. Do you think or
do you think that's contributed to us struggling recovery that switch.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
I think there was some unfortunate consequences of phrasing it
that way. You know, high value, low volume. I don't
think that's a sensible phrase at all. Every business tries
to maximize returns, and hotels, for example, are dynamically priced,
meaning that the price changes depending on demand every day.
No hotel intentionally leaves money on the table. But New
(05:11):
Zealand is not a cheap destination to travel to. We're
a long flight away. Our domestic airfares certainly aren't cheap
at the moment, and no traveler to New Zealand, no
international visitor, is kind of low value. People backpacking and
camping around the country spend money throughout our regions and
that's an incredibly valuable thing. So solving tourism growing demand,
(05:36):
the key issues have always been seasonality and dispersal. Seasonality,
we've got hotels, particularly in winter, that are emptier than
they should be, and airports that are emptier than they
should be, and convention centers that are emptier than they
should be, so we need to do more to drive
people to come to New Zealand in the shoulder seasons
(05:57):
and low seasons. That seasonality disperse is moving people around
the country. We don't just want people going to Queenstown.
So let's focus more on our emptier city centers. Let's
drive people into Auckland, Wellington and other urban centers because
New Zealanders would be delighted to have those urban centers
busy with tourists.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
Visiting New Zealand just got more expensive. The government announced
Tuesday it will nearly triple entry fees for tourists to
one hundred New Zealand dollars or sixty two dollars twenty US.
Authorities argued it would ensure visitors contributed to public services
and high quality experiences while visiting the country. Matt Doosey
is the New Zealand Minister for Tourism and Hospitality.
Speaker 5 (06:43):
What we want to do is shift some of the
costs from the taxpayer to the visitor, and ultimately what
we want to do is grow tourism. We've got an
ambitious target to double our exports as a country over
the next ten years.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
And tourists now have to pay one hundred bucks at
the border. That made international headlines.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
Do you reckon? That's a bit off putting.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Again, the timing of that announcement when other countries were
reducing visa costs or introducing visa free travel, that perhaps
could have been better, But that decision has been made.
Now the key issue is how do we use that
one hundred dollars per international traveler to help the tourist
industry and the New Zealand economy recover as fast as possible.
(07:30):
And again, the reason for wanting more tourists in is
because tourists massively overcontribute in tax that they pay relative
to what they use. All the GST they pay on
all the spending they do in New Zealand is way
more than the amount of money that gets reinvested back
into tourists. So the IVL at one hundred New Zealand
(07:53):
dollars for many international travelers is not out of line
with some other countries. So how do we use that
one hundred New Zealand dollars IVL to attract more international
tourists back to New Zealand quickly so we can fill
up our bars, our restaurants, our retailers and our shops
that rely on free spending international travelers. Now that messaging
(08:17):
we're getting out of the government now is a willingness
to really dial those efforts up. And that's a very
very good thing.
Speaker 2 (08:23):
So what's best case scenario here, What like an international
campaign to get people to Gore or something.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Well, I'm sure the good folk of Gore would love
more international travelers coming to their spot. International campaigns are
certainly part of it. But remember I talked about seasonality
and dispersal, and that opens up the idea of what
tourism experts called mice meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions. A
tourist to New Zealand is not just a backpacker or
(08:54):
someone hiking through our national parks. If you have three
thousand Chinese Amway executives in the CBD of Auckland, those
three thousand people are tourists as well. So some of
this can be a specific campaign to drive more Australians
to New Zealand quickly, because Australia is a market that
hasn't fully recovered yet. That is one intervention we could
(09:18):
do now to help tourism. But we could also look at,
say three fairly new international standard convention centers, and we
could think deeply about how we activate those three wonderful
urban assets in the long term to make sure New
Zealand also has an outstanding reputation for mice rather than
(09:38):
just an outstanding reputation for the beauty of our landscapes.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
When it comes to the digital nomad visa, there are
places overseas that have seen like cultural shifts, you know,
corner stores turning into generic coffee shops, that kind of thing.
I guess we're in a bit of a different situation
here in New Zealand. Hey, the cultural diversity in Auckland,
for example, I bet won't be as impacted as the
one in a tiny town in the Spanish Alps for example.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Hey, look, I agree with you, and I think also
the nomad visa was kind of filling a hole. I
think it started with a YouTuber who put out a
positive tweet about New Zealand. And of course the YouTuber
gets gets paid for their podcast appearance, unlike hotel company
executives like me. But yeah, you know, he put out
a podcast and that was technically a breach of his
(10:22):
visa conditions. So I think what they've done is they've said, hey,
that kind of thing is okay. In Spain. As I
understand it, there were tax advantages to be on this
separate visa called a digital nomad visa, and you could
stay for up to five years. New Zealand's not doing that.
We're just clarifying that people who are on visitor visas
(10:43):
in New Zealand can pull out the laptop and do
some work. And I think that's clearly a good thing,
but it's not going to fill the gap and demand
some of these other interventions. You and I talked about
what's needed to move us from eighty seven percent of
pre COVID visitor arrivals two one hundred and thirty hotels
today in New Zealand are about ten points of occupancy,
(11:06):
ten percentage points emptier than they should be. And there
are about thirty five thousand hotel rooms in New Zealand.
So that's just hotels, that's not motels and short term
rental accommodation. And so you know, ten percentage points emptier
than they should be means three and a half thousand
more tourists we could easily handle, or ten Boeing aircraft
(11:28):
could could be handled very very comfortably with the existing hotels.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
Thanks for joining us, James.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
You're very welcome. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 5 (11:36):
Justin.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
We're now joined from Barcelona by freelance writer Marta Bufsels
to discuss how tourism and digital nomads have been leaving
a trail of issues across the country. When did this
backlash over the I guess over tourism start in Barcelona
(12:10):
because it feels like it's been going on there for
quite some time now.
Speaker 6 (12:13):
Yeah, it's been going on for about a decade probably,
but the real huge backlash we're seeing now started around
the pandemic, or it increased with the pandemic, because well,
I should say, obviously tourism stopped in twenty twenty and
with all the lockdowns, but then afterwards when things opened up,
it sky rocketed and they saw record numbers. The pressure
(12:35):
is felt in several specific places in Spain and not
in others. And I live in Barcelona, which is the
example I know best, and it's you know, where I
grew up as well, and I've seen the absolutely huge
difference over the decades. It's a city that cannot cope
with the mass tourism it's been getting. It was a problem,
you know, ten years ago, but since twenty twenty one,
(12:57):
twenty twenty two, it's been really extreme.
Speaker 7 (13:00):
It causes a lot of problems.
Speaker 6 (13:01):
And then the digital nomad situation was probably you know,
the cherry on top or just the thing that made
rage spill over.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yeah, how drastically has the city changed as a result
of all of this tourism and the digital nomad visa
very drastically.
Speaker 6 (13:17):
I think the biggest impact has been on housing because
it's not a big city, it doesn't have room to grow,
and it was already very very dense. One of the
dnsists in Europe, and rents have increased sixty percent in
a decade, and salaries, of course have not increased. In fact,
there's huge inflation and you know, the cost of living
(13:38):
has risen for everybody. But tourism was an issue, and well,
not tourism, over tourism, mass tourism, airbnb sort of gentrification,
which is a you know, is an issue in many
many cities around the world, but here it's a bit
of a pressure cooker in the sense that there isn't
that much housing. The salaries that digital nos tend to
(14:00):
have are very very high, and they pay twice three
times what you know what an already expensive rent literally
three years ago. They work for wealthier sort of for
wealthy companies, for wealthier economies. They already arrived with a
really huge income that doesn't compare to most people in
(14:21):
the city. So it's a case of extreme gentrification, and
it's a case of locals feeling like they're being pushed out.
There's a huge protest going on right now around an eviction.
Speaker 7 (14:33):
That is planned.
Speaker 6 (14:34):
An investment fund bought an entire building, and little by little,
when you know, when when people's rent expired, they evicted them,
and they're trying to just make a lot of money
from from just renting these flats for you know, five
times what the rents used to be, and they're trying
to evict a particular neighbor right now, and there are
protests on that street every day. People are you know,
(14:56):
sleeping intents in order to be there in the morning.
Speaker 7 (14:58):
And stop the eviction.
Speaker 6 (15:00):
And this is happening in the center of the city,
in a very middle class neighborhood. And this is quite
telling because what's happening with this extreme amounts of tourism
and essentially very wealthy tourists choosing to live here, and
more than doubling the rents, is that it's now affecting
the middle.
Speaker 8 (15:21):
Class when they VEX two, four or even a single person.
Like we always say, if they touch one of us,
(15:43):
they touch all of us, and we will always be
by the side.
Speaker 6 (15:56):
That Barcelona has an issue with access to house and
astronomical rents, but a lot of that is about sort
of turning flats into short term rents. What I mean
is eleven month rents. The problem seems to be more
focused on, as I say, digital nomads or just wealthy
workers from richer countries just choosing to come here for
(16:19):
the lifestyle. The other big issue is the cultural impact
of this. But yeah, choosing to come here for the
lifestyle and then paying you know, four times what a
normal local rent would be, or like an average local
rent would be, because that is so much more profitable
to I don't know if it's landlords or huge investment
funds or whatever, they try to have these eleven month rents.
(16:41):
So it's housing, it's not quite the it's not quite
the weekend stay. Where the focus is now is this
eleven month thing, because that's a loophole the law doesn't
allow rental contracts for less than leases for less than
five years, Like that's what you get when you rent
a flat at least five years, but they have a
loophole where they can make it eleven months less than
(17:03):
a year. It's a different sort of law, and that's
what they're doing there basically.
Speaker 7 (17:07):
I mean, as is the case in the.
Speaker 6 (17:08):
Street I mentioned earlier, they're evicting someone who's lived there
for decades to turn it into a you know, less
than a year rental situation.
Speaker 7 (17:16):
So it's slightly different.
Speaker 6 (17:17):
It's for people living here, not so much tourists, but
it's the digital normach sort of situation that's very new
and that that has risen rent because we had or
the city had, you know, mass tourism in twenty fifteen
and rents were relatively relatively stable. I say relatively, you know,
(17:38):
Airbnb was a huge issue, but this seems on another scale.
I mean, the sixty percent increase is mind boggling, and
it's it's being you know, strongly felt by everybody. I mean,
you can't, Yeah, it's it's very anxiety inducing to look at.
Speaker 7 (17:54):
What's for rent out there. It's just impossible.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
This line stuck out for me. In your British Vogue piece,
you said, anyone who treats a foreign city as their
personal playground isn't adding anything to the mixed beyond cultural imperialism.
Can you explain to me what the cultural impact of
so many people coming into Barcelona is.
Speaker 6 (18:17):
Absolutely, I mean, this is I think just an example
of the gentrification happening in so many different places and
also the flattening of a lot of cultures that's happening
on social media, and you know, as a product of
the Internet, so it's not unique to hear there is
some of you know, what's been talked about as the
generic coffee shop phenomenon that you know, a lot of
(18:39):
places now look like like establishments that could be in
any city in the world. They look exactly the same
as something you could find in Melbourne or in London.
Speaker 7 (18:48):
But that's probably you know, just also because of the
Internet and just where where we're at.
Speaker 6 (18:54):
But I said that because there's a strong sense from
locals that they are sort of background, you know, background
extras to somebody else's adventure or life. This is how
we I would say, many of us often feel I
lived in London for over a decade, and I've you know,
spent a lot of time in the US, so I
(19:15):
recognize a lot of the conversations, you know, I hear
in coffee shops or on the street. I hear a
lot of Americans talking about buying houses or about their
pretty luxurious lifestyle here, and I hear a lot of
Brits and I have nothing, you know, like, I just
recognize the conversations, and I I hear them talk about
their lifestyle basically, which is luxurious because obviously it's cheaper
(19:37):
to them than their home countries are. And it just
it's something that i've I was reading about San Francisco
the other day and something you know, similar was being said,
and it sort of erases a lot of the diversity.
Speaker 7 (19:51):
I just want to be very clear that this is it's.
Speaker 6 (19:53):
Almost the opposite of diversity, because I think this city
has always been open to anyone who you know, to immigration,
to especially to refugees. You know, it's been very open,
and diversity only makes it richer, and it was getting
more and more diverse and more interesting and more. I
don't know, it's open, it's always it's always felt like that,
(20:13):
but this is, this is almost I don't know, it
feels extremely different and I think that, Yeah, the word imperialism.
Speaker 7 (20:20):
Has been used.
Speaker 6 (20:22):
It was like a tongue in cheek to clarify, but
it's sometimes talked about as more of a colonial attitude.
You know, how some people just use the world as
they as their playground.
Speaker 7 (20:34):
It's just so palpable.
Speaker 6 (20:35):
I mean, we have two official languages here and one
one is Catalan, and of course it's it's an endangered language,
so people care about you know, people care about it,
and it's already it's already not doing great sometimes, you know,
it's it's a language, yeah, that is close to a
lot of people's heart, and they speak it and we're
pretty used to a lot of people not speaking it.
Speaker 7 (20:57):
But a lot of digital normals just don't even tried Spanish.
They just they just speak in English.
Speaker 6 (21:04):
They come into a bakery or whatever, and they just
expect to speak English. And not everybody is like that,
but there's, you know, countless examples of this kind of attitude.
Speaker 7 (21:15):
You just kind of see it everywhere.
Speaker 6 (21:16):
It's tricky to say, you know, because you don't want
to generalize, but it's also pretty obvious when a lot of.
Speaker 9 (21:22):
Just very unique neighborhood shops have closed down and they
are now coffee shops or whatever, or yoga studios or
co working spaces with all the signage in English and.
Speaker 7 (21:34):
Again like you could be in any of their city.
Speaker 6 (21:36):
And it's just it is sad because a lot of
those establishments made the city unique, you know, they were
part of the character.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Thanks for joining us, my pleasure, Thank you for having me.
That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
at endsid.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Herald, dot co dot m Z.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin,
who is also a sound engineer.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look
behind the headlines.
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