Grant Webster: Tourism Holdings CEO on says we need to invest financially to attract international tourists

There's a belief New Zealand needs to put its money where its mouth is to attract international tourists. 

Overseas visitor arrivals reached 3.2 million in the year to June but is still 17% down on pre-pandemic peaks. 

Tourism Holdings Chief Executive, Grant Webster told Mike Hosking we simply have to be more competitive, as other countries spend big. 

He says Australia's three major states combined have a $800 million spend – more than 50% on New Zealand on a per capita basis. 

Webster says Aotearoa needs to invest in order to bring people back, and we need to drop the expectation it 'will just happen' without work. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tourism Stats release, we're reminded yet again of how far
short of where we need to be we actually are.
Visitor arrivals are still seventeen percent down on pre pandemic levels.
This is back twenty nineteen, for goodness. Like, there's some
growing angst as well around the cost of visas. Visas
are going up to three hundred and forty one dollars
visitors visa. That is, that's up by sixty one percent.
Tourism Holdings Incorporated CEO Grant Webster back, will this Grant,

(00:20):
very good morning to you. And you if you were
to guess where the tourism market is that from your
expertise and experience, would you say it is still down
on COVID you can seal it, see it, feel it.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Oh well and truly yeah. Yeah. I mean, look, we've
seen some good growth. I mean there's some growth still
to come, and the fear is definitely that we're losing
competitiveness on a global basis.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Well, I'm glad you said that because, I mean, we've
all talked about China, but China's an individual story. Australia
is at eighty six percent of what it was Britain
seventy three percent. Why aren't we attractive?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Well, I think I think part of it is the
is the marketing dollar, right. I mean, if you look
at tourism Australia in take the three big states South Wales, Victoria, Queensland,
they combine have got around eight hundred million and spend.
So that's that's on a per capita basis, that's like
fifty percent more than us in New Zealand, and we
are less than one percent, well less than one percent

(01:15):
market share and tourism on a global basis. So we've
got to be more competitive. We've got to invest, we've
got to get our money out there and show what
we're about and get people back. It's not going to
just happen, which is the sense I have at the
moment that people think, oh it's okay things, people will.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Just come exactly. So your argument is if we told
the story, we're still good enough to get the people here.
It's just we're not telling the story as opposed to
even if we told the story, they don't want to
come anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Well, I think I think tourism, my view touris in
New Zealand is doing a good job of telling the
story with what they've got, they need some more. But
more importantly, right at the moment, we've seen a removal
of funding for events and events of what kept winter
alive apart from ski obviously, you know, we've issues with
the cruise industry for next year with boats not coming

(02:02):
through at the same extent. And then what we've seen is,
as you said, visitors costs going up, visa visitors going up,
working holiday visas going up even more, and threats of
IBL So it's time to put the foot on the
throt or, not on the throat, and let's let's fuel
the tourism industry, not block it.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
So you argue the visa thing is material, it would
make a difference to people's decision.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
It does demand e. Leicester City at the border is real.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Wow. See I'd argue differently based on the fact that
the dollars and the toilet Therefore, I mean, you take
your forty eight forty nine US cents and you can
get here. I mean that's not bad going. Are we
too expensive.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
At the border? Every when we look at other countries
removing visa costs, and when we look at the relativity
of New Zealand to other competing destinations. That's the point.
They're not just going to come and pay whatever. They
look and compare, just as we do around the world. Right,
So it does make a difference. We end up being
four five hundred dollars more expensive than we were last week,

(03:05):
and it makes a difference.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Good insight. Grunt appreciate it very much. I'm wrong. I
apologize for that. I wouldn't have thought it was a major,
but clearly it isn't. He's an expert and I'm not.
So we'll need to talk to Erica Stanford, who's behind
all of that, of course, But when you look at
the numbers, Australier eighty six percent of what it was,
Britain seventy three percent, China fifty five, they're their own story.
The only people who are playing the ball or playing
the game of the US who are back to one

(03:27):
hundred and three percent and twenty nineteen, as I keep
reminding you, is now five years each and every year,
twenty nineteen, twenty twenty one, twenty three to twenty five. We're
losing each and every year. And it was our second,
if not our biggest foreign income earner.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
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