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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: Thomas Coglan is The Herald's political editor with the Prime

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Speaker 2: Minister in Shanghai. Hi Thomas Hi. Okay, So what's going

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Speaker 2: on with the Chinese tourists. I've been talking about it.

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Speaker 2: Why aren't we getting as many as we used to?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's quite a lot less than we used to.

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Speaker 1: We're still at about sixty percent of pre COVID levels.

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Speaker 1: China was and remains a key tourism market for US,

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Speaker 1: and it is just not the strength of market as

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Speaker 1: it was pre COVID. One of the big issues that's

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Speaker 1: been talked about a lot on this trip is visa excess. Now,

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Speaker 1: if you're a Chinese tourist, you need to apply for

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Speaker 1: a visa in China, get all your documents and your

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Speaker 1: visa a new passport, then you come to New Zealand. Now,

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Speaker 1: obviously New Zealand will be a much more advertising and

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Speaker 1: appealing prospect. If you could just show up at Auckland

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Speaker 1: the airport, presuming passport and come and have a nice holiday.

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Speaker 1: The government you could do this, they could give Chinese

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Speaker 1: visa pre access to New Zealand, but they don't want to.

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Speaker 1: On the download appears that is because of concerns about overstaying,

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Speaker 1: asylum claims, that sort of thing. So we've seen today

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Speaker 1: transit visa to make it easier for Chinese tourists to

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Speaker 1: transit through a from the airport. We've seen it the

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Speaker 1: government making it easier to if you're if you've got

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Speaker 1: an Australian visa to come to New Zealand on holiday.

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Speaker 1: But that it looks like that visa free travel is

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Speaker 1: simply not happening and that does appear to be a

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Speaker 1: bit of a problem.

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Speaker 2: It does appear to be a bit of a problem,

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Speaker 2: does it.

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Speaker 1: Yes, So we were taking to trip dot com you

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Speaker 1: be very familiar with. That's a big online booking platforms,

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Speaker 1: China's biggest, biggest online tourism booking platform. The chief executive

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Speaker 1: gave the chief chief executive, Jane Sun, gave Christopher Lux

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Speaker 1: and the tour around their headquarters today and she showed

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Speaker 1: the Chinese arrivals to New Zealand and what they were doing.

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Speaker 1: She also she showed lux and that actually Chinese tourists

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Speaker 1: are a booking booking trips in a hurry, that they're

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Speaker 1: booking the trip and then they're leaving, and they sugguced

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Speaker 1: that they are keen to get that visa free access,

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Speaker 1: but it looks like the government is just not going

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Speaker 1: to budge on that. They're going to do everything but that.

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Speaker 1: But they won't do that now.

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Speaker 2: We spoke yesterday to a guy called David Man who's

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Speaker 2: an investment banker based in China. He said that the

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Speaker 2: Chinese are reasonably irritated by us because we made such

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Speaker 2: a fuss of India and went to India first and

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Speaker 2: haven't prioritized them. You got any sense of that while

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Speaker 2: you're there not yet.

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Speaker 1: To be fair, we're probably not if there is a

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Speaker 1: sense of that, We're not going to get that until

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Speaker 1: Friday when Christopher Luxin's in Beijing and ther Meat Sesian thing.

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Speaker 1: So if that, if there is a sense of that,

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Speaker 1: then then we won't. We won't get that till later. Interestingly,

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Speaker 1: on the government side, that they are changing the way

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Speaker 1: they talk about India and China. They're saying China is

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Speaker 1: a maturer relationship. We've been here for decades, we've had this,

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Speaker 1: We've got this pretty mature economic relationship between between China

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Speaker 1: and New Zealand. Now two thousand and eight. That FTA

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Speaker 1: was a long time ago, so that this was saying

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Speaker 1: that this is a mature relationship. We're better than we're friends,

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Speaker 1: and the India relationship is one that is relatively new.

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Speaker 1: Obviously we've got long standing connections through the British Empire,

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Speaker 1: but in terms of that economic relationship, we really haven't

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Speaker 1: got a deep economic relationsip with NDA. So I think

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Speaker 1: they're trying to say, well, look, different speeds for different relationships.

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Speaker 2: Okay. Now, obviously the world is watching what's going on

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Speaker 2: between Israel and around. The Prime Minister to have anything

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Speaker 2: to say about.

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Speaker 1: That, well, yes and no, he was keen to stay

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Speaker 1: out of this issue. He said that New Zealand was

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Speaker 1: see piece and stability in the Middle East and we're

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Speaker 1: a long long way away from that, which is absolutely true.

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Speaker 1: And he said that New Zealand stands with a number

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Speaker 1: of other countries and wanting and wanting a peaceful solution

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Speaker 1: to that conflict there, but one looks like a long

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Speaker 1: way away.

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Speaker 2: Yep, Thomas, listen, thank you very much, Save travels. It's

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Speaker 2: Thomas Coglan, the Herald's political editor. For more from Hither

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Speaker 2: duplessy Alan Drive listen live to news talks. It'd be

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