Cath O'Brien: Board of Airline Representatives Executive Director on the tourism sector still not recovering to pre-pandemic levels

New Zealand's tourism recovery has seemingly hit a snag. 

Overseas visitor arrivals reached 3.2 million in the year to June. 

That's up 27% from 2023, but still down 17% on pre-pandemic peaks. 

It comes as visa charges rise and hikes to the International Visitor Levy debated. 

Board of Airline Representatives Executive Director, Cath O'Brien told Ryan Bridge while other countries continue to recover, New Zealand appears to be stalling. 

She says the coming summer's airline schedule expects just 2% growth. 

O’Brien says it will bring fewer tourists, and it's counterproductive to steeply increase visa costs at the same time. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Our tourism recovery appears to have stalled. A number of
overseas arrivals reached three point two million in the year
to June. That sounds good, but it's down seventeen percent
on pre pandemic peaks and still hovering it around eighty
percent of pre COVID levels for the year. It comes
at a time where visa chargers are going up in

(00:20):
the international visitor levy could rise by as much as
three times to one hundred dollars for many tourists outside
of Australia in the Pacific. Cath O'Brien's with the Board
of Airline Representatives is with us this morning. Cath, Good morning,
good morning. How do we compare? How does our recovery
post COVID compare to other countries?

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, look, I think you know, New Zealand's among those
countries that had its borders closed for longer, so we
are slower to recover. And you know, last time we
enjoyed a great sort of boom recovery from COVID and
saw a lot of travel, which is fantasy six, and
saw a lot of tourists returning to New Zealand. What
we're seeing now though, is that kind of recovery stop,

(01:01):
which is unusual in the world and unusual and Compton,
but yeah, like unusual in that you know, we've we've
got other countries who would see tourism continue to grow
and New Zealand appears to be seeing tourism are numbers
kind of stalling, which is which makes us strange. Right

(01:22):
looking ahead to the summer twenty twenty four, so airlines
have planned their schedules and we can see that New
Zealand as a total country will receive just two percent
more services than we saw last year, which is far
less than we would love to see. So you know
that that is going to bring us to you a tourists,

(01:43):
and in a time that that's happening, you know, to
increase our visa costs so very deeply and so suddenly
is really counterproductive.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
What is behind us, do you think?

Speaker 2 (01:56):
Yeah, that's a really good question. New Zealand appears to
be losing market share, so so we seem to sort
of be losing the fight and being a great place
to go to. You know, there are other nature based
economies that offer far more inexpensive you know, holidays. You know,
I'm looking here at the likes of Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam.
You know, those economies are seeing some great, some great recoveries,

(02:19):
and noticably Vietnam has they're taking its visitor a rival
charge to zero to encourage that to happen at New Zealand.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
Does that make a difference? Does that make a difference,
because we're obviously going to look at hiking us. Does
it actually stop people?

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yeah? I think it actually really does because it's the
total cost of the journey, and especially when New Zealand is,
you know, a really long way away often for many travelers,
a very expensive place to commit to coming to. In
any case, then that to add, you know, hundreds of
dollars of cost, and here we're seeing Jesus rise. A
visitor visa is now three hundred and forty one dollars

(02:57):
for an individual, and then what are we going to
add the international visitor leva at another one hundred dollars
on top of that, so four hundred and forty you
haven't even bought a ticket yet.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, Kat, that's a really good point. Actually, gosh, it
sounds a bloody expensive, doesn't it when.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
You put it like that?

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Kat, Thank you for your time this morning. Cath O'Brien,
bord Aville Unrepresentatives. I can remember traveling around South America,
Central America, that kind of stuff when I was younger,
and the Galapagus Islands. I remember we had to pay
a one hundred dollars I think it was one hundred
US dollars visitor levy. But of course it's the Glaphicas Islands.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
You know.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
You go there because David Edinburgh went there, you know,
and you want to see it all, so you just
pay it. For more from News Talks B listen live
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