Grant Webster: Tourism Holdings Limited CEO on the small dip in international arrivals, ongoing growth

It's thought a small dip in international visitors is nothing to worry about. 

International arrivals fell 1.8% between April and May, but remain 6.7% higher than a year ago. 

Australia and China continue to be New Zealand's biggest visitor markets, despite fewer arrivals from the UK and the United States. 

Tourism Holdings Limited chief executive Grant Webster told Mike Hosking tourism was growing well before Covid, and we're back on that growth path.  

He says you can't cut your way to prosperity, so we've got to continue on this path. 

Christchurch is also outpacing Auckland in overseas visitor growth thanks to growing flight capacity, with Christchurch Airport recording a 22% increase, well ahead of Auckland's 0.7%. 

Webster told Hosking dispersal of visitors is good for economic spread – Christchurch's effort to increase capacity has flowed through, but there's no doubt Auckland will continue to grow too over the next 12 months. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Big data dump on immigration and tourism. Immigration next down
for you. But as regards visitors were a tad down
on the month, but significantly up on the year, up
six point seven percent. In fact, we're back to ninety
three percent of the pre COVID number. China's behind a
lot of this growth. Grant Webs, chief executive of Tourism Holdings,
is back with this. Grant, very good morning to you.
So as far as they dip on the month, is
concerned as that? I mean it's seasonally adjusted as well.

(00:22):
Is there anything to worry about or no.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
No, that's a blit And as we know the around
situation has had some impact obviously, but know nothing to
worry about that.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Okay, China driving the growth, do you see that? And
is there more where that came from? They're only back
to seventy seven percent of where they were pre COVID.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
Yeah, it is a lot more where that came from.
Absolutely see that in the Lakes of Waitamwall. Not so
much on the rental side of things. But I think
that again that we've talked about before, the visa changed
with Australia is part of what's driving that. But I
think there's more that can be done in that space
as well.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
See Australia the US are now over one hundred percent.
In other words, we're growing once again, which is fantas
Is there more where that came from or not?

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, No, absolutely there is. We've we've got to realize
that tourism was growing well before COVID, right, and we're
just back to that growth path. So we know that
it's important to the economy. We know, as you said
this morning, we want to drive debt down. We've got
to We've got to do it through growth, not through
cutting costs. Oh you can't. You know, you can't cut
your way to prosperity, right, So, yeah, there's more to come.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Okay, as far as the dollars concerned, as that helping.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
It does, it doesn't necessarily make a difference to a
destination decision, but it certainly changes what people spend on
the ground.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
Okay, what do you make so christ your ch airport's
up twenty two percent, Queenstown twenty Auckland up zero point seven.
Is that where they land doesn't matter or it does matter?

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Oh? No, I don't. I don't think it matters overall.
I mean christ Church comes off a lower base, right,
But that done a good job and the South Island's
obviously attractive. Dispersal of customers across the country as good
for the regions and good for economics spread, so it
is good to see that spread more evenly. But at
the moment for South I'd be grown. That's fine indeed.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
And how much of that's about capacity? I mean, are
the brains full, the seats full as Auckland maxed out?
What's going on there?

Speaker 2 (02:15):
I think you've just you've seen crisis do a good
job of increasing capacity and that's flown through. You've seen
a lot come out of Australia from that perspective as well.
But Auckland will continue to grow and I think we'll
see more capacity growth here over the coming twelve months
without it out.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Okay, you mentioned the Middle East? Do people just different
route or are people not traveling because of the Middle East.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
I think you had a couple of things going on,
so ear prices definitely increased with the reduced capacity that
was in the total market. You had a degree of
uncertainty and those things are coming right now. So I
don't think we're going to this coming summer be quite
where we could have been had the will not occurred. However,
I think we're still going to be in great and

(02:58):
I think we're going to hit that pre OVID number.
Good to steal your saying from somewhere else, this is
our Yet.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Where are you at with your takeover offer? By the way,
what's the timeline on that? Is this a good time
to be you?

Speaker 2 (03:12):
We had deep in due diligence. As you know, we've
got two different parties that are conducting DD on the
business at the moment, so we just deed them that timeline.
We're just going to see from here. It's a few
months yet before we know exactly we will end up,
so we just focus on growing the business at the
same time.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Good stuff mus to talk to you as always. Grant Webster,
who is the chief executive of Tourism Holdings. If you're
not following the last question, they've had a couple of
offers from two different people and as you said, they're
looking at the books as we speak.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
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