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Speaker 1: So Louise Upston fires off an enthusiastic press release last night.

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Speaker 1: International visitors spend on the up. It proclaims new data

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Speaker 1: which we get from the International Visitor Survey shows a

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Speaker 1: ten percent jump and spending on the previous year. Sounds impressive, right,

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Speaker 1: sounds like we're getting somewhere finally shaking off those COVID cobwebs.

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Speaker 1: But and this is where we start to see the

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Speaker 1: spin doctors earning their keep. Let's not forget that we've

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Speaker 1: been dealing with inflation outside of the band over the

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Speaker 1: past year, which means stuff costs more. Restaurants and hotels

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Speaker 1: are included. So are we actually getting more out of

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Speaker 1: tourism than we were? And is the jumping up and

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Speaker 1: down from the minister and the government actually justified? Well,

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Speaker 1: the measure of success ought to be pre COVID. Right

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Speaker 1: when everything was shut down, we battened down the hatches

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Speaker 1: and we basically kiss the world goodbye. By that measure,

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Speaker 1: spending is still only eighty six percent of what it was,

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Speaker 1: only eighty six percent of twenty nineteen. Now, the very

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Speaker 1: same minister responsible for last night's press release was the

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Speaker 1: very same minister responsible for firing one off on March

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Speaker 1: fourth this year, celebrating a big boost and tourism spending

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Speaker 1: up to you guessed it, eighty six percent of pre COVID.

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Speaker 1: So the longer than short of it is nothing has

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Speaker 1: changed in real terms between March's pr exercise and June's.

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Speaker 1: The Aussies and most of our big competition for these

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Speaker 1: international tourists reversed the trends and brought them back a

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Speaker 1: long time ago. The number of tourists traveling around the

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Speaker 1: world recovered to pre pandemic levels last year. Instead of

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Speaker 1: celebrating no real success month after month, we ought to

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Speaker 1: be asking ourselves why we're still such a long way

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Speaker 1: off the hip hot destination we were just five years ago.

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Speaker 1: For more Familily edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live to

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Speaker 1: news talks. It'd be from five am weekdays, or follow

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