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Speaker 1: Tourist debate. It's raging this morning over how many tourists

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Speaker 1: this new tax height will turn off a visit to

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Speaker 1: Middle Earth. The international tourist levy is currently thirty five dollars,

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Speaker 1: but from the start of next month it'll cost visitors

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Speaker 1: arriving here one hundred dollars. The tourism industry says forty

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Speaker 1: eight thousand fewer tourists will come here as a result,

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Speaker 1: and they spend almost three hundred million dollars. So who's right?

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Speaker 1: Who's wrong? Eve Lawrence is with Inid Intrepid Travel New Zealand. Eve,

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Speaker 1: good morning, Good morning. Do you who do you think

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Speaker 1: is right here? Do you think you know the numbers

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Speaker 1: being banded about are possible that we could lose fifty

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Speaker 1: thousand tourists a year?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I absolutely do. I think coss New Zealand is

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Speaker 2: losing competitiveness in the tourism landscape, and I think it's

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Speaker 2: absolutely possible we could lose a lot of revenue to

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Speaker 2: New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: What types of tourists would be affected most? Do you think?

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Speaker 2: Well, when you think about the recent increases in visa fees,

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Speaker 2: we're talking about the ash market as well. Here. If

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Speaker 2: you look at a family of four coming over to

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Speaker 2: New Zealand from China. They're already now going to be

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Speaker 2: looking at around two thousand dollars just to choose New

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Speaker 2: Zealand as a holiday destination. And that's before they even

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Speaker 2: think about booking flights or coming here and paying for

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Speaker 2: on ground services.

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Speaker 1: Is that two thousand extra on top of what they

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Speaker 1: were paying because of recent heights or that's two thousand total.

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Speaker 2: That's two thousand total. So the visa fees of doubled

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Speaker 2: and the IVL has now increased by one hundred and

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Speaker 2: eighty five percent.

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Speaker 1: How does that compare to similar markets that they might

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Speaker 1: otherwise go to. I saw Australia put there livy up,

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Speaker 1: albeit only ten bucks in July.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, they absolutely did. But the reality is we are

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Speaker 2: still lagging far behind a lot of other nations in

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Speaker 2: terms of our recovery from pre COVID. We're only sitting

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Speaker 2: at eighty percent visitation of pre COVID numbers, whereas Australia

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Speaker 2: are going to recover to one hundred percent in around

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Speaker 2: about the next three months. We're lagging behind in air

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Speaker 2: connectivity and we're also lagging behind now on price.

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Speaker 1: Would you argue now's not the right time. Do you

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Speaker 1: can see that we do need at some point to

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Speaker 1: increase this levy because it pays for the upkeep of

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Speaker 1: our national parks, et cetera.

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Speaker 2: Yeah one, But that's also something that hasn't been given

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Speaker 2: to us or hasn't been discussed, is what this funding

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Speaker 2: mechanism is actually going to be going towards and how

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Speaker 2: it's going to be distributed. So we need to understand

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Speaker 2: what's going to go towards tourism and what's going to

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Speaker 2: be pushed towards conservation.

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Speaker 1: They've seen fifty to fifty split.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, but who's that going to go to and how's

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Speaker 2: that going to be distributed? And of course we support

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Speaker 2: an increase, but a three week window in order for

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Speaker 2: us to push this out to travel agent market is

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Speaker 2: not long enough. So October twenty twenty five would have

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Speaker 2: been a more reasonable time frame.

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Speaker 1: Actually, I suppose people have already booked. Well, if you've

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Speaker 1: already booked, what you have already paid and therefore you

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Speaker 1: wouldn't be affected from next month.

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Speaker 2: But who knows? I think is it for new applications

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Speaker 2: or are people that have already submitted thendd ETA going

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Speaker 2: to be expected to increase their fee if they arrive

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Speaker 2: after the first of October.

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Speaker 1: It's a good question, could get missy, couldn't it? Eve?

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Speaker 1: Thank you for that, Eve Lawrence and Trepid travel New Zealand.

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