With the December 2022 quarter GDP results setting out a decline of 0.6 per cent, there is real scope for tourism to play a very important role in moving to positive territory.
Pre-COVID (year to March 31, 2020) tourism directly contributed 5.6 per cent of GDP and this fell to 3.0 per cent through the COVID period (year to March 31, 2022) as the industry focused on domestic tourism alone.
“Now, with international visitors starting to return, we are in a great position to recover the 2.6 per cent of GDP that was lost in the COVID period,”Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Rebecca Ingram says.
“If we do this, the future national GDP position will be stronger.”
She say the focus now needs to be on removing the roadblocks to the recovery of our diverse tourism industry.
“While it is great to see international tourism recovering, the tourism industry could be making a greater contribution if pressure on workforce recovery was relieved.
“Anecdotally, we all hear about businesses that are curtailing their offerings as they simply don’t have enough staff.”
Boosting tourism’s workforce means the industry will be able to offer more experiences and extend opening hours.
“A key first step is to remove the friction we see in the flow of skilled and valuable workers from overseas and, while this is happening to some degree, TIA wants to see this key constraint addressed so we can quickly realise gains for New Zealand as a whole,” Rebecca says.
