Speaker 1: Yoda.
Speaker 2: I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a
Speaker 2: daily podcast presented by the New Zealand Herald. The government
Speaker 2: wants to see tourism numbers increase as part of its
Speaker 2: economic growth push. As part of that push, the existing
Speaker 2: visitor visa scheme will be tweaked to include welcoming in
Speaker 2: digital nomads that'll allow tourists from visa waiver countries up
Speaker 2: to nine months to travel around New Zealand while still working.
Speaker 1: For their overseas employer.
Speaker 2: The scheme has already been greeted with expressions of interest
Speaker 2: from overseas, but the introduction of digital nomad visas in
Speaker 2: some countries has contributed to local backlash against tourists. We'll
Speaker 2: hear more about how the scheme is working in Spain
Speaker 2: from journalists their Marta Balcelles, but first today on the
Speaker 2: Front Page, Strategic director of the Hotel Council Altieroa, James
Speaker 2: Dillon joins us to discuss the state.
Speaker 1: Of tourism in New Zealand.
Speaker 2: James figures from Tourism New Zealand show that tourist arrivals
Speaker 2: from all countries remains at eighty six point three percent
Speaker 2: of pre COVID levels.
Speaker 1: Why do you think this number has struggled to move.
Speaker 3: It's a complicated problem to unpick. But as soon as
Speaker 3: we closed our international boarders as a result of the
Speaker 3: battle against COVID, it was always going to be a marathon,
Speaker 3: not a sprint, and Hotel Council Al tier Roh has
Speaker 3: said there would not be a v shaped recovery. So
Speaker 3: winning tourists back to New Zealand, attracting them here involves
Speaker 3: a number of different interventions that all need to be made.
Speaker 3: Frankly speaking, New Zealand probably hasn't done enough to lay
Speaker 3: out the welcome Matt and huss It's hard to get
Speaker 3: tourists back here after we closed.
Speaker 1: Our borders, right, so what do we need to do.
Speaker 3: We can look overseas at some of the initiatives that
Speaker 3: have been carried out by other countries and we can
Speaker 3: ask ourselves whether those would work in New Zealand and
Speaker 3: implement some of them. To be honest, I mean, call
Speaker 3: me Captain obvious, but if you shut down business, and
Speaker 3: that's what we did with international tourism, then you probably
Speaker 3: have to dial up marketing to win back that business
Speaker 3: when you reopen. So ten years ago New Zealand's national
Speaker 3: tourism marketing body, that's Tourism New Zealand, had about one
Speaker 3: hundred and ten million New Zealand dollars to spend on
Speaker 3: international marketing. Fast forward to today and that number has
Speaker 3: actually gone down a little bit. It's about one hundred
Speaker 3: million today. Meanwhile, we've had huge inflation and the New
Speaker 3: Zealand dollar has weakened by about twenty five percent against
Speaker 3: the US. So in summary, over a decade, despite the
Speaker 3: minor inconvenience of a global pandemic, we've actually reduced our
Speaker 3: investment in attracting people to New Zealand for a holiday,
Speaker 3: for business and for other reasons.
Speaker 1: Are you pleased with the government's focus now on trying
Speaker 1: to increase tourism numbers and bringing in this digital nomad scheme.
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely, because it is one hundred percent the right
Speaker 3: thing to do. In the hotel industry, we have two
Speaker 3: factors we look at when you're looking at performance all
Speaker 3: the time, and it makes logical sense, but it's worth
Speaker 3: talking through for your listeners. Again, when you're trying to
Speaker 3: maximize returns at our hotel, you need to get the
Speaker 3: right mix of occupancy. That's the percentage of rooms that
Speaker 3: are filled and room rate. There's no point being one
Speaker 3: hundred percent filled if you're only charging ten dollars a night.
Speaker 3: There's no point charging ten thousand dollars a night and
Speaker 3: not selling any rooms. You've got to maximize that those
Speaker 3: two factors. Now, the strongest position is to sort out
Speaker 3: occupancy first and then you can drive rate and that
Speaker 3: makes logical sense the laws of supply and demand. So
Speaker 3: New Zealanders, as you said, at the outset, we're hovering
Speaker 3: around eighty six percent of pre COVID international visitor arrivals.
Speaker 3: In reality, we need to get ourselves to one hundred
Speaker 3: and twenty or one hundred and thirty percent of pre
Speaker 3: COVID visitor arrivals. And that's because we've built new hotels
Speaker 3: and open new hotels. We've built new bars and restaurants.
Speaker 3: We've built three big convention centers, and to be at
Speaker 3: par we need to be about one hundred and thirty
Speaker 3: percent of pre COVID visitor arrivals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember the Labor government had a big focus
Speaker 2: on that higher end tourism, those who would come here
Speaker 2: and spend big rather than travel on the cheap Stewart
Speaker 2: Nash was quite anti freedom campers from memory for a while,
Speaker 2: there was that the wrong approach. Do you think or
Speaker 2: do you think that's contributed to us struggling recovery that switch.
Speaker 3: I think there was some unfortunate consequences of phrasing it
Speaker 3: that way. You know, high value, low volume. I don't
Speaker 3: think that's a sensible phrase at all. Every business tries
Speaker 3: to maximize returns, and hotels, for example, are dynamically priced,
Speaker 3: meaning that the price changes depending on demand every day.
Speaker 3: No hotel intentionally leaves money on the table. But New
Speaker 3: Zealand is not a cheap destination to travel to. We're
Speaker 3: a long flight away. Our domestic airfares certainly aren't cheap
Speaker 3: at the moment, and no traveler to New Zealand, no
Speaker 3: international visitor, is kind of low value. People backpacking and
Speaker 3: camping around the country spend money throughout our regions and
Speaker 3: that's an incredibly valuable thing. So solving tourism growing demand,
Speaker 3: the key issues have always been seasonality and dispersal. Seasonality,
Speaker 3: we've got hotels, particularly in winter, that are emptier than
Speaker 3: they should be, and airports that are emptier than they
Speaker 3: should be, and convention centers that are emptier than they
Speaker 3: should be, so we need to do more to drive
Speaker 3: people to come to New Zealand in the shoulder seasons
Speaker 3: and low seasons. That seasonality disperse is moving people around
Speaker 3: the country. We don't just want people going to Queenstown.
Speaker 3: So let's focus more on our emptier city centers. Let's
Speaker 3: drive people into Auckland, Wellington and other urban centers because
Speaker 3: New Zealanders would be delighted to have those urban centers
Speaker 3: busy with tourists.
Speaker 4: Visiting New Zealand just got more expensive. The government announced
Speaker 4: Tuesday it will nearly triple entry fees for tourists to
Speaker 4: one hundred New Zealand dollars or sixty two dollars twenty US.
Speaker 4: Authorities argued it would ensure visitors contributed to public services
Speaker 4: and high quality experiences while visiting the country. Matt Doosey
Speaker 4: is the New Zealand Minister for Tourism and Hospitality.
Speaker 5: What we want to do is shift some of the
Speaker 5: costs from the taxpayer to the visitor, and ultimately what
Speaker 5: we want to do is grow tourism. We've got an
Speaker 5: ambitious target to double our exports as a country over
Speaker 5: the next ten years.
Speaker 2: And tourists now have to pay one hundred bucks at
Speaker 2: the border. That made international headlines.
Speaker 1: Do you reckon? That's a bit off putting.
Speaker 3: Again, the timing of that announcement when other countries were
Speaker 3: reducing visa costs or introducing visa free travel, that perhaps
Speaker 3: could have been better, But that decision has been made.
Speaker 3: Now the key issue is how do we use that
Speaker 3: one hundred dollars per international traveler to help the tourist
Speaker 3: industry and the New Zealand economy recover as fast as possible.
Speaker 3: And again, the reason for wanting more tourists in is
Speaker 3: because tourists massively overcontribute in tax that they pay relative
Speaker 3: to what they use. All the GST they pay on
Speaker 3: all the spending they do in New Zealand is way
Speaker 3: more than the amount of money that gets reinvested back
Speaker 3: into tourists. So the IVL at one hundred New Zealand
Speaker 3: dollars for many international travelers is not out of line
Speaker 3: with some other countries. So how do we use that
Speaker 3: one hundred New Zealand dollars IVL to attract more international
Speaker 3: tourists back to New Zealand quickly so we can fill
Speaker 3: up our bars, our restaurants, our retailers and our shops
Speaker 3: that rely on free spending international travelers. Now that messaging
Speaker 3: we're getting out of the government now is a willingness
Speaker 3: to really dial those efforts up. And that's a very
Speaker 3: very good thing.
Speaker 2: So what's best case scenario here, What like an international
Speaker 2: campaign to get people to Gore or something.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm sure the good folk of Gore would love
Speaker 3: more international travelers coming to their spot. International campaigns are
Speaker 3: certainly part of it. But remember I talked about seasonality
Speaker 3: and dispersal, and that opens up the idea of what
Speaker 3: tourism experts called mice meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions. A
Speaker 3: tourist to New Zealand is not just a backpacker or
Speaker 3: someone hiking through our national parks. If you have three
Speaker 3: thousand Chinese Amway executives in the CBD of Auckland, those
Speaker 3: three thousand people are tourists as well. So some of
Speaker 3: this can be a specific campaign to drive more Australians
Speaker 3: to New Zealand quickly, because Australia is a market that
Speaker 3: hasn't fully recovered yet. That is one intervention we could
Speaker 3: do now to help tourism. But we could also look at,
Speaker 3: say three fairly new international standard convention centers, and we
Speaker 3: could think deeply about how we activate those three wonderful
Speaker 3: urban assets in the long term to make sure New
Speaker 3: Zealand also has an outstanding reputation for mice rather than
Speaker 3: just an outstanding reputation for the beauty of our landscapes.
Speaker 2: When it comes to the digital nomad visa, there are
Speaker 2: places overseas that have seen like cultural shifts, you know,
Speaker 2: corner stores turning into generic coffee shops, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: I guess we're in a bit of a different situation
Speaker 2: here in New Zealand. Hey, the cultural diversity in Auckland,
Speaker 2: for example, I bet won't be as impacted as the
Speaker 2: one in a tiny town in the Spanish Alps for example.
Speaker 3: Hey, look, I agree with you, and I think also
Speaker 3: the nomad visa was kind of filling a hole. I
Speaker 3: think it started with a YouTuber who put out a
Speaker 3: positive tweet about New Zealand. And of course the YouTuber
Speaker 3: gets gets paid for their podcast appearance, unlike hotel company
Speaker 3: executives like me. But yeah, you know, he put out
Speaker 3: a podcast and that was technically a breach of his
Speaker 3: visa conditions. So I think what they've done is they've said, hey,
Speaker 3: that kind of thing is okay. In Spain. As I
Speaker 3: understand it, there were tax advantages to be on this
Speaker 3: separate visa called a digital nomad visa, and you could
Speaker 3: stay for up to five years. New Zealand's not doing that.
Speaker 3: We're just clarifying that people who are on visitor visas
Speaker 3: in New Zealand can pull out the laptop and do
Speaker 3: some work. And I think that's clearly a good thing,
Speaker 3: but it's not going to fill the gap and demand
Speaker 3: some of these other interventions. You and I talked about
Speaker 3: what's needed to move us from eighty seven percent of
Speaker 3: pre COVID visitor arrivals two one hundred and thirty hotels
Speaker 3: today in New Zealand are about ten points of occupancy,
Speaker 3: ten percentage points emptier than they should be. And there
Speaker 3: are about thirty five thousand hotel rooms in New Zealand.
Speaker 3: So that's just hotels, that's not motels and short term
Speaker 3: rental accommodation. And so you know, ten percentage points emptier
Speaker 3: than they should be means three and a half thousand
Speaker 3: more tourists we could easily handle, or ten Boeing aircraft
Speaker 3: could could be handled very very comfortably with the existing hotels.
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, James.
Speaker 3: You're very welcome. Thanks a lot.
Speaker 5: Justin.
Speaker 2: We're now joined from Barcelona by freelance writer Marta Bufsels
Speaker 2: to discuss how tourism and digital nomads have been leaving
Speaker 2: a trail of issues across the country. When did this
Speaker 2: backlash over the I guess over tourism start in Barcelona
Speaker 2: because it feels like it's been going on there for
Speaker 2: quite some time now.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's been going on for about a decade probably,
Speaker 6: but the real huge backlash we're seeing now started around
Speaker 6: the pandemic, or it increased with the pandemic, because well,
Speaker 6: I should say, obviously tourism stopped in twenty twenty and
Speaker 6: with all the lockdowns, but then afterwards when things opened up,
Speaker 6: it sky rocketed and they saw record numbers. The pressure
Speaker 6: is felt in several specific places in Spain and not
Speaker 6: in others. And I live in Barcelona, which is the
Speaker 6: example I know best, and it's you know, where I
Speaker 6: grew up as well, and I've seen the absolutely huge
Speaker 6: difference over the decades. It's a city that cannot cope
Speaker 6: with the mass tourism it's been getting. It was a problem,
Speaker 6: you know, ten years ago, but since twenty twenty one,
Speaker 6: twenty twenty two, it's been really extreme.
Speaker 7: It causes a lot of problems.
Speaker 6: And then the digital nomad situation was probably you know,
Speaker 6: the cherry on top or just the thing that made
Speaker 6: rage spill over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how drastically has the city changed as a result
Speaker 2: of all of this tourism and the digital nomad visa
Speaker 2: very drastically.
Speaker 6: I think the biggest impact has been on housing because
Speaker 6: it's not a big city, it doesn't have room to grow,
Speaker 6: and it was already very very dense. One of the
Speaker 6: dnsists in Europe, and rents have increased sixty percent in
Speaker 6: a decade, and salaries, of course have not increased. In fact,
Speaker 6: there's huge inflation and you know, the cost of living
Speaker 6: has risen for everybody. But tourism was an issue, and well,
Speaker 6: not tourism, over tourism, mass tourism, airbnb sort of gentrification,
Speaker 6: which is a you know, is an issue in many
Speaker 6: many cities around the world, but here it's a bit
Speaker 6: of a pressure cooker in the sense that there isn't
Speaker 6: that much housing. The salaries that digital nos tend to
Speaker 6: have are very very high, and they pay twice three
Speaker 6: times what you know what an already expensive rent literally
Speaker 6: three years ago. They work for wealthier sort of for
Speaker 6: wealthy companies, for wealthier economies. They already arrived with a
Speaker 6: really huge income that doesn't compare to most people in
Speaker 6: the city. So it's a case of extreme gentrification, and
Speaker 6: it's a case of locals feeling like they're being pushed out.
Speaker 6: There's a huge protest going on right now around an eviction.
Speaker 7: That is planned.
Speaker 6: An investment fund bought an entire building, and little by little,
Speaker 6: when you know, when when people's rent expired, they evicted them,
Speaker 6: and they're trying to just make a lot of money
Speaker 6: from from just renting these flats for you know, five
Speaker 6: times what the rents used to be, and they're trying
Speaker 6: to evict a particular neighbor right now, and there are
Speaker 6: protests on that street every day. People are you know,
Speaker 6: sleeping intents in order to be there in the morning.
Speaker 7: And stop the eviction.
Speaker 6: And this is happening in the center of the city,
Speaker 6: in a very middle class neighborhood. And this is quite
Speaker 6: telling because what's happening with this extreme amounts of tourism
Speaker 6: and essentially very wealthy tourists choosing to live here, and
Speaker 6: more than doubling the rents, is that it's now affecting
Speaker 6: the middle.
Speaker 8: Class when they VEX two, four or even a single person.
Speaker 8: Like we always say, if they touch one of us,
Speaker 8: they touch all of us, and we will always be
Speaker 8: by the side.
Speaker 6: That Barcelona has an issue with access to house and
Speaker 6: astronomical rents, but a lot of that is about sort
Speaker 6: of turning flats into short term rents. What I mean
Speaker 6: is eleven month rents. The problem seems to be more
Speaker 6: focused on, as I say, digital nomads or just wealthy
Speaker 6: workers from richer countries just choosing to come here for
Speaker 6: the lifestyle. The other big issue is the cultural impact
Speaker 6: of this. But yeah, choosing to come here for the
Speaker 6: lifestyle and then paying you know, four times what a
Speaker 6: normal local rent would be, or like an average local
Speaker 6: rent would be, because that is so much more profitable
Speaker 6: to I don't know if it's landlords or huge investment
Speaker 6: funds or whatever, they try to have these eleven month rents.
Speaker 6: So it's housing, it's not quite the it's not quite
Speaker 6: the weekend stay. Where the focus is now is this
Speaker 6: eleven month thing, because that's a loophole the law doesn't
Speaker 6: allow rental contracts for less than leases for less than
Speaker 6: five years, Like that's what you get when you rent
Speaker 6: a flat at least five years, but they have a
Speaker 6: loophole where they can make it eleven months less than
Speaker 6: a year. It's a different sort of law, and that's
Speaker 6: what they're doing there basically.
Speaker 7: I mean, as is the case in the.
Speaker 6: Street I mentioned earlier, they're evicting someone who's lived there
Speaker 6: for decades to turn it into a you know, less
Speaker 6: than a year rental situation.
Speaker 7: So it's slightly different.
Speaker 6: It's for people living here, not so much tourists, but
Speaker 6: it's the digital normach sort of situation that's very new
Speaker 6: and that that has risen rent because we had or
Speaker 6: the city had, you know, mass tourism in twenty fifteen
Speaker 6: and rents were relatively relatively stable. I say relatively, you know,
Speaker 6: Airbnb was a huge issue, but this seems on another scale.
Speaker 6: I mean, the sixty percent increase is mind boggling, and
Speaker 6: it's it's being you know, strongly felt by everybody. I mean,
Speaker 6: you can't, Yeah, it's it's very anxiety inducing to look at.
Speaker 7: What's for rent out there. It's just impossible.
Speaker 2: This line stuck out for me. In your British Vogue piece,
Speaker 2: you said, anyone who treats a foreign city as their
Speaker 2: personal playground isn't adding anything to the mixed beyond cultural imperialism.
Speaker 2: Can you explain to me what the cultural impact of
Speaker 2: so many people coming into Barcelona is.
Speaker 6: Absolutely, I mean, this is I think just an example
Speaker 6: of the gentrification happening in so many different places and
Speaker 6: also the flattening of a lot of cultures that's happening
Speaker 6: on social media, and you know, as a product of
Speaker 6: the Internet, so it's not unique to hear there is
Speaker 6: some of you know, what's been talked about as the
Speaker 6: generic coffee shop phenomenon that you know, a lot of
Speaker 6: places now look like like establishments that could be in
Speaker 6: any city in the world. They look exactly the same
Speaker 6: as something you could find in Melbourne or in London.
Speaker 7: But that's probably you know, just also because of the
Speaker 7: Internet and just where where we're at.
Speaker 6: But I said that because there's a strong sense from
Speaker 6: locals that they are sort of background, you know, background
Speaker 6: extras to somebody else's adventure or life. This is how
Speaker 6: we I would say, many of us often feel I
Speaker 6: lived in London for over a decade, and I've you know,
Speaker 6: spent a lot of time in the US, so I
Speaker 6: recognize a lot of the conversations, you know, I hear
Speaker 6: in coffee shops or on the street. I hear a
Speaker 6: lot of Americans talking about buying houses or about their
Speaker 6: pretty luxurious lifestyle here, and I hear a lot of
Speaker 6: Brits and I have nothing, you know, like, I just
Speaker 6: recognize the conversations, and I I hear them talk about
Speaker 6: their lifestyle basically, which is luxurious because obviously it's cheaper
Speaker 6: to them than their home countries are. And it just
Speaker 6: it's something that i've I was reading about San Francisco
Speaker 6: the other day and something you know, similar was being said,
Speaker 6: and it sort of erases a lot of the diversity.
Speaker 7: I just want to be very clear that this is it's.
Speaker 6: Almost the opposite of diversity, because I think this city
Speaker 6: has always been open to anyone who you know, to immigration,
Speaker 6: to especially to refugees. You know, it's been very open,
Speaker 6: and diversity only makes it richer, and it was getting
Speaker 6: more and more diverse and more interesting and more. I
Speaker 6: don't know, it's open, it's always it's always felt like that,
Speaker 6: but this is, this is almost I don't know, it
Speaker 6: feels extremely different and I think that, Yeah, the word imperialism.
Speaker 7: Has been used.
Speaker 6: It was like a tongue in cheek to clarify, but
Speaker 6: it's sometimes talked about as more of a colonial attitude.
Speaker 6: You know, how some people just use the world as
Speaker 6: they as their playground.
Speaker 7: It's just so palpable.
Speaker 6: I mean, we have two official languages here and one
Speaker 6: one is Catalan, and of course it's it's an endangered language,
Speaker 6: so people care about you know, people care about it,
Speaker 6: and it's already it's already not doing great sometimes, you know,
Speaker 6: it's it's a language, yeah, that is close to a
Speaker 6: lot of people's heart, and they speak it and we're
Speaker 6: pretty used to a lot of people not speaking it.
Speaker 7: But a lot of digital normals just don't even tried Spanish.
Speaker 7: They just they just speak in English.
Speaker 6: They come into a bakery or whatever, and they just
Speaker 6: expect to speak English. And not everybody is like that,
Speaker 6: but there's, you know, countless examples of this kind of attitude.
Speaker 7: You just kind of see it everywhere.
Speaker 6: It's tricky to say, you know, because you don't want
Speaker 6: to generalize, but it's also pretty obvious when a lot of.
Speaker 9: Just very unique neighborhood shops have closed down and they
Speaker 9: are now coffee shops or whatever, or yoga studios or
Speaker 9: co working spaces with all the signage in English and.
Speaker 7: Again like you could be in any of their city.
Speaker 6: And it's just it is sad because a lot of
Speaker 6: those establishments made the city unique, you know, they were
Speaker 6: part of the character.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining us, my pleasure, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: That's it for this episode of the Front Page. You
Speaker 2: can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage
Speaker 2: at endsid.
Speaker 1: Herald, dot co dot m Z.
Speaker 2: The Front Page is produced by Ethan Sills and Richard Martin,
Speaker 2: who is also a sound engineer.
Speaker 1: I'm Chelsea Daniels.
Speaker 2: Subscribe to the Front Page on iHeartRadio or wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts, and tune in tomorrow for another look
Speaker 2: behind the headlines.