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Speaker 1: Got some good news from the tourism sector. Boy do

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Speaker 1: we need that. In the year to September, visitor numbers

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Speaker 1: up seventeen percent. The key here though, is the spend

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Speaker 1: spend is up thirty percent, so we brought in eleven

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Speaker 1: point seven billion, So that's good. Surely. Tourism Holding Step

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Speaker 1: Executive Grant Websters back, Well, it's Grant. Very good morning

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Speaker 1: to you.

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Speaker 2: And good morning to you.

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Speaker 1: Are you seeing it?

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Speaker 2: Aye? Yeah? Absolutely in New zelling you we're seeing both

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Speaker 2: those stats come through really strongly. I think of note

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Speaker 2: that visitor spend when you adjusted for inflation, clearly it's

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Speaker 2: around the same as as visited numbers, so around that's

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Speaker 2: sort of eighty five percent of pre COVID levels.

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Speaker 1: So we're still not cracking one hundred. Do you see

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Speaker 1: us getting back to do we need to get back

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Speaker 1: to because every time I talk to a minute so

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Speaker 1: they go, oh, don't worry about that and talk about

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Speaker 1: the quality. It's all about the quality.

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Speaker 2: No, Look, we have the ability of the infrastructure, and

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Speaker 2: clearly when you see that growth in total GDP and

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Speaker 2: that export earnings to New Zealand, it makes sense for

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Speaker 2: us to continue to focus on getting back to one

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Speaker 2: hundred percent and beyond. I mean we can manage it.

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Speaker 2: We can manage it more actively than we did pre

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Speaker 2: COVID as well, so we've got more digital capability, we've

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Speaker 2: got better companies doing more things.

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Speaker 1: What do you see as that handbreak. I mean some

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Speaker 1: would argue capacity, the number of airlines and seats isn't

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Speaker 1: quite back as that, it is an image problem.

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Speaker 2: What is it. I think we're actually still suffering from

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Speaker 2: opening late. I think that's part of it. Then on

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Speaker 2: top of that, yes, when you look at that growth

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Speaker 2: rate calendar twenty five, I think is going to be

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Speaker 2: a bit of a struggle because we've got the air

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Speaker 2: lowing capacity issue. We've obviously got the barriers put up

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Speaker 2: by the government this year with increasing the OVL and

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Speaker 2: visa costs and so forth. So we've actually now got

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Speaker 2: to get back up in say twenty twenty sticks is

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Speaker 2: where we're really going to get our market shereback on class.

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Speaker 1: So you're talking about general economy in that sense, because

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Speaker 1: the banks are saying exactly the same thing. Next year

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Speaker 1: is a grind. Twenty six is where the growth comes.

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Speaker 1: So tourism aligns with the economy if you like, oh.

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Speaker 2: Look I think yes, but for those different reasons, we

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Speaker 2: haven't got that their capacity. We've put up these barriers.

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Speaker 2: So we've got to get back on the world stage.

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Speaker 2: And you know, there's still some talk around about Tourism

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Speaker 2: New Zealand having reduced funding, which in my mind's just idiotic.

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Speaker 2: We we we give Tea and Zed less per capita

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Speaker 2: and per GDP than any of our main competitors. We've

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Speaker 2: got to refocus on growth and pleadingly, the Tourism Minister

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Speaker 2: has said he's launched a tourism growth roadmap that's going

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Speaker 2: to come out next year.

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Speaker 1: Good eased to hear it, Good good, good, all right,

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Speaker 1: Grant go well. Grant Webster Tourism holding the Sun.

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Speaker 2: See you for more from the Mic Asking Breakfast, listen

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