NZ's Tourism Minister against attracting $10 a day travelers who eat 2-minute noodles
Pre-pandemic, foreign income from tourism to New Zealand was more than what the dairy industry generated. However, concerns were voiced that the increasing numbers of international visitors resulted in overcrowding, straining existing infrastructure and damaging the nation’s green image.
As New Zealand begins to open borders to international visitors, the government is proposing a re-set of tourism that promotes qualitative experiences over chasing volume of visitors.
The Minister for Tourism Steuart Nash has said that with the return of international visitors, tourism in New Zealand will not return to the way it was. That it will not fall back into the old ways and that it will be better with a shift towards sustainability.
Furthermore, he bluntly elaborated that New Zealand needed to attract ‘discerning travelers’, and not target people who posted on Facebook how they can travel around the country on $10 a day eating 2-minute noodles.
According to the Minister, the industry needs to refocus on attracting ‘high value’ visitors as distinct from high net worth – and that still includes budget travelers and backpackers. “High-value, high quality visitors give back more than they take. They travel across seasons and across regions. They are environmentally conscious. They want to learn about local history and culture, and try new experiences,” he said.
Among those who oppose the minister’s proposal is a professor of tourism at Otago University who claims that “the assumption that ‘high net worth’ individuals contribute more than budget travelers isn’t necessarily backed up by research” and that he’s not seen any evidence of it.
He goes on to add, “On the contrary the trend over recent decades globally has been for tourists to travel further, travel faster, produce more CO2, stay shorter and spend less at the destination. Big spenders are often the most environmentally damaging, and because they tend to have regular repeat high carbon travel with low length of stay…they are not particularly beneficial to destinations”.
Another detractor wrote ““The return of backpackers might not be a silver bullet to make up for two years of closed borders, but they are the lifeblood of hostels around the country, visit places beyond the main travel hotspots, and provide the industry with vital seasonal work.
In 2019, an estimated 65,000 backpackers came into New Zealand and paid to sleep in 27,000 beds around the country”.
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