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Speaker 1: So we appear to be creeping ever closer to reaching

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Speaker 1: pre COVID tourism levels. About fifteen thousand more overseas visitors

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Speaker 1: travel to New Zealand And January than the year before.

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Speaker 1: This puts out US at about ninety seven percent now

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Speaker 1: of pre pandemic levels. Now the mirror of Queenstown Lakes District.

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Speaker 1: John Glover is with us.

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Speaker 2: Hi, John, Yeah, good afternoon, Heather.

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Speaker 1: Have you noticed it?

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Speaker 2: Oh? Crazy? Yeah? And this season has been very very

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Speaker 2: strong for us locally.

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Speaker 1: What are you seeing?

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Speaker 2: So, I mean it started in November and you know,

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Speaker 2: the tourism numbers and the people around November felt like January.

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Speaker 2: So this year has been really really strong. And our

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Speaker 2: neighboring councils if you look north up to take Apol

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Speaker 2: for the Mackenzie Council, they've really felt the pressure of

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Speaker 2: convoys of campavans and others just rattling through their district.

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Speaker 1: Now, in the past, obviously Queenstown's had a bit of

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Speaker 1: a love hate relationship with the tourists because of course

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Speaker 1: of the pressure that they put on the infrastructure. What's

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Speaker 1: it like at the moment, are you guys still in

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Speaker 1: that space or just grateful.

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Speaker 2: So we're I mean, we're in full noise with tourism.

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Speaker 2: We recover to our pre pandemic levels. You know, we're

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Speaker 2: probably a one hundred and fifteen per cent above pre pandemic,

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Speaker 2: so we're certainly noticing it. I think the conversation's matured.

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Speaker 2: It is actually a broader one of how we manage growth,

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Speaker 2: you know. I mean we look around. We've got the

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Speaker 2: ski fields, we've got the bike trails, we've got the restaurants,

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Speaker 2: we've got the wineries. We wouldn't have a lot of

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Speaker 2: that stuff without the tourists. And like myself, many many

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Speaker 2: people came here as a visitor, came on holiday, stayed

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Speaker 2: and they ended up putting down routes and making it work.

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Speaker 1: How are you feeling about what you're seeing going on globally?

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Speaker 1: The impact that it's going to have on airline prices,

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Speaker 1: the impact it's going to have on in New Zealand

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Speaker 1: flying to the regions, probably not yours though, How do

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Speaker 1: you feel about that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, well, we're already seeing some flights being consolidated, some

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Speaker 2: services being canceled, so the'll be fewer services to Wellington

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Speaker 2: Crime Church in Auckland. That down price ye yeah. But

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Speaker 2: I mean that's that's the airline responding to the market pressure.

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Speaker 1: Are losing John, I'm surprised by that.

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Speaker 2: I think there's probably about three to six a week

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Speaker 2: and so I mean that's that's down to the airlines.

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Speaker 2: El can solid eight some flights. They'll move some people around.

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Speaker 2: But I think short term, you know, people will have

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Speaker 2: got that Easter holidays books. You know, it's not too

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Speaker 2: long till east of the school holidays, so people I

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Speaker 2: think we'll just carry on with that. You know, they've

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Speaker 2: they've probably got their prices locked and loaded. I think

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Speaker 2: as we get into the winter season and people are

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Speaker 2: notoriously last minute for booking winter holidays because lastly coming

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Speaker 2: from Australia, because they want to wait domestip you and

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Speaker 2: see what US knows doing, so we may see some

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Speaker 2: hesitation and people I think pricing and fight availability will

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Speaker 2: feed it into that.

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Speaker 1: Good luck with it, John, and thanks very much for

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Speaker 1: your time. John Glover, Mirror of Queenstown Lakes District.

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