Queenstown’s outgoing Otago Regional Council councillor Alexa Forbes, in last week’s Mountain Scene, criticised the government’s "bums on seats" approach to tourism and predicted it was only a matter of time before it started throwing millions at marketing.
Well, just three days later it announced it’s putting $500,000 towards a campaign to entice Aussies across the ditch.
Money that’s coming from an International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy meant to be spent on conservation and tourism infrastructure and from a levy, ironically, Aussie visitors don’t contribute to.
In a Facebook post, Forbes responded: "Bugger the infrastructure, bugger the environment that sells the country.
"No consultation with the people who’ll have to host, the people who have nowhere to live, can’t get anywhere because of the congestion and whose sewerage isn’t working properly.
"No thought for the degradation of lakes or hot spots trammelled to death by too many people and not enough infrastructure."
Former local Labour Party candidate, Jon Mitchell, who also ran for the Queenstown mayoralty in 2022, supports Forbes’ thinking and questions the government’s push to get us back to pre-Covid levels of tourism.
"In fact we want fewer people, we want them to stay longer so we get better value from them and they have a better experience.
"One American [visitor on TV] put it really well — ‘we’re loving it here, it’s wonderful, don’t tell anyone’.
"So there is a balance we need to strike, and the government is way off that message entirely."
Mitchell notes Destination Queenstown CEO Mat Woods and others "have made a very persuasive argument for a more balanced approach, and particularly in the carbon field".
"Well, flying more people across the Tasman for a short period of time just contradicts all of that."
Woods says "it’s great to see the government investing in tourism, however we still need to see investment in infrastructure to ensure we deliver a good guest experience and that our local residents aren’t feeling that pressure from tourism".
He notes Australian visitors are this resort’s most important international market, but says while Prime Minister Christopher Luxon states NZ’s only back to 88% of pre-Covid levels, numbers of Australians in Queenstown already exceed pre-Covid levels.
