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Speaker 1: Good news from tourism spending is almost back to what

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Speaker 1: it was pre nineteen sixteen point nine billion dollars in

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Speaker 1: the year to March total. If you added all up,

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Speaker 1: it's up fourteen point six percent to forty four and

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Speaker 1: a half billion dollars, a lot of money. Tourism New

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Speaker 1: Zealand boss Renee demoshes back with us. Rene, very good

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Speaker 1: morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Mike.

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Speaker 1: So we don't need the people, We just need their wallets.

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Speaker 1: That's what this boils down to. Is it quality not quantity?

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Speaker 2: Well, we want both, Mike, and look, I think there's

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Speaker 2: plenty of capacity and we actually want both. But it

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Speaker 2: is a good news story. You know those are that's

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Speaker 2: a pretty big growth number. Six billion dollars of growth

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Speaker 2: in tourism spend in the year to march. You know,

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Speaker 2: that's the significant uplift from a major expert.

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Speaker 1: I'm glad to hear you say plenty of capacity because

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Speaker 1: I was watching the news last night and they managed

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Speaker 1: to find yet another moner who was saying that, you know,

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Speaker 1: the infrastructure can't cope and it's all too busy, and

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Speaker 1: it's is it or not.

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Speaker 2: Well, Look, I think it's important we've got to promote

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Speaker 2: New Zealand year round. But if you think about it,

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Speaker 2: as we talked about previously, you know, we're at about

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Speaker 2: eighty five percent of the visitor numbers that we were

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Speaker 2: pre COVID, so there's definitely plenty of capacity, and especially

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Speaker 2: when you look at year round, you know we still

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Speaker 2: have quite a lot of people that come in the

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Speaker 2: summer months. How do we also encourage people. It's a

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Speaker 2: big focus of ours of people to come, you know,

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Speaker 2: between March and November and not just between December and.

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Speaker 1: February shoulder seasons. We're now back to the second largest

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Speaker 1: exporter and know this is tourism. How far short of

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Speaker 1: dairy are we because once upon a time you guys

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Speaker 1: were neck and neck and occasionally beat them.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's usually one of one or the

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Speaker 2: other that's number one or two. It's driven a little

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Speaker 2: bit by commodity pricing of dairy that can be a

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Speaker 2: fluctuator and in our case, the recovery of tourism. I

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Speaker 2: don't know exactly how short we are, but i'd say

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Speaker 2: that at six billion growth a year on year, we're

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Speaker 2: accelerating fast. So you know, it's great to be back

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Speaker 2: to number two tourism export. I think we'll continue to

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Speaker 2: see strong growth in the sector for the year ahead.

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Speaker 1: I hearn somebody on board, sorry, carry on.

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Speaker 2: And I think that's really important because what the numbers

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Speaker 2: also shows, actually in that same period, domestic has been

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Speaker 2: declined by two and a half percent, So it's really

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Speaker 2: important that international tourism is there. Really, bosses the economy.

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Speaker 1: Couldn't agree more. I heard somebody earlier on in the

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Speaker 1: station suggesting we're expensive. How is it? How can we

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Speaker 1: be expensive when I hand over fifty five US cents

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Speaker 1: for a dollar and forty five p for a dollar.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, look, the exchange rate out of the US certainly helps.

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Speaker 2: But look, New Zealand is by no means a cheap destination.

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Speaker 2: You know, you have to travel quite a long way

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Speaker 2: for most of the world, you have to take quite

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Speaker 2: a long time, and you do have to spend quite

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Speaker 2: a lot of money, so we're a premium destination. I

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Speaker 2: don't think we're cheap, but you know, having a good

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Speaker 2: foreign exchange rate with the US dollar and with a

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Speaker 2: pound that certainly helps because it just lowers the barrier.

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Speaker 1: Very good to be able to have a compositive conversation

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Speaker 1: about Tourism Reno, appreciate your time. Tourism New Zealand CEO.

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Speaker 1: The money is flying the Americans really has become a

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Speaker 1: real thing, thank the good Lord, because the Chinese aren't

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Speaker 1: coming back, and we've got the visa issue, and they

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Speaker 1: travel seemingly domestically, and if it's not literally themes tolar,

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Speaker 1: it's within the immediate region, and I don't know that

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Speaker 1: they're ever necessarily coming back in the numbers they were

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Speaker 1: once coming back in. So it's encouraging to see tourism

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Speaker 1: as is up and running to a degree anyway, financially speaking.

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