Danny Luke: Skyline Enterprises COO on the tourism in Queenstown

Queenstown's benefiting from another influx of winter tourists. 

Local operator Skyline has seen a 33% increase in international visitors to its luge, and a 21% rise in visitors to its gondolas. 

Other operators are also reporting a similar increase. 

Chief Operating Officer Danny Luke told Mike Hosking tourism is booming again. 

He says the winter’s been vibrant and they’re seeing real growth at the moment. 

LISTEN ABOVE 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So while Disney and their cruise ships are off, the
good news around tourism can be found in Queenstown. New
data from Skyline. They're the lousion gondola people.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Of course.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
They see international lous rides up thirty two percent, gondola
rides up twenty one percent. Danny Luke is the chief
operating officer at Skyline and is with us. Danny morning,
Good morning, Mike. If you see it, does the whole
town see it? In other words, as the whole race booming?

Speaker 2 (00:23):
It is. Yeah, we're seeing real gross down here at
the moment. The winters. The winter's been vibrant and we've
got lots of international vizillas coming in, which is great
to see and.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Not being pedantic about it, but how do you know
a person on a gondola is international versus local?

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Oh, we asked them when they arrived. Mike. We've seen
a lot of Australians. We know they come every year
for the ski season. They've had a bit of a
lack of snow this year, but they're still coming in
their troves, which is, as I said, amazing to see.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
What's your vibe in terms of it's too busy, it's
too full.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
We don't think that. What do we think there is
We think there's room for growth here. I mean, we're
investing significantly in our infrastructure at Skyline. We know other
tourism operators are doing the same. We believe there's probably
some assistance from the government required in terms of traffic congestion.
But you know there is room for growth here. We
would like to see growth, and we're investing heavily for

(01:16):
the future.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Good on you, And how does your business there compared
with your businesses and various other parts of the world.

Speaker 2 (01:23):
We'll Queen downs a much larger property to what we
have internationally. We have six international properties, a couple in
Canada and Korea, Singapore, Malaysia. This is a large scale
gondola property, but internationally we have the Louge, which is
our flagship attraction. So it's a lot bigger here than
what we have internationally.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
And do you say, but the reason I asked the
question is do you see tourism generally booming all over
the world or is it specific to your particular part
of the world.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Now we're seeing growth. I've just got from Canada actually
last week, and we're seeing record numbers in both Tromlong
and Calgary, where are two sites that are located. And
I was in career in Singapore last month. Both of
those properties are putting records on so we're seeing growth
around the world. Tourism is booming.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Were you going to look at Wales? Were you looking
at a place in Wales? Or Am I making that up?

Speaker 2 (02:14):
No? You're not making it up. No, No, we are
looking at Wales Swansea. So we've worked on that since
twenty eighteen, so that's been a long long project making
good progress. Now we've got a really good relationship there
with the council and local community. So we hope to
have a new property in Europe and the near future.

Speaker 1 (02:31):
Fantastic Go well, appreciate it very much, Danny Luke, who's
a COE at Skyline Enterprises. So tell me why in
Calgary and in Asia and Queen Standy's seeing record amounts
of business and this country isn't seeing record amounts of business.
What is going I mean the ships we mentioned earlier
on the cruise ships. We told you it's too expensive.
We just whacked charge after charge after charge rule after all,

(02:53):
and they've said, don't worry about it. We won't be coming.
So if you look at the numbers, and I gave
them to you the other day, if you look at
the cruise season, you go back, I think it's too
cruise seasons. We had record numbers of cruise ships here.
It was a half billion dollar industry. Ever since then,
the rules have come in and we've just seen the
ship arrivals fall off a cliff.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
For more from The Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to
news talks that'd be from six am weekdays, or follow
the podcast on iHeartRadio.