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Speaker 1: A little bit of controversy around this year's cruise season.

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Speaker 1: A couple of issues. One, port calls are expected to

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Speaker 1: be down twenty percent, to the levees are eating these

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Speaker 1: and newish levees or more levees are eating into the

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Speaker 1: company's bottom lines. To the tune this season about three

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Speaker 1: million diamond Princess floated into Wellington yesterday. If you want

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Speaker 1: to have a lookout and christ heading that way today

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Speaker 1: you zill and Cruise Association boss Jackie Lloyd's with us,

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Speaker 1: Jackie morning, good morning. Why are we twenty percent down?

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Speaker 2: Mainly increase cost to operate? So what we've seen over

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Speaker 2: the last year is increases and port fees, increases in

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Speaker 2: government levees, increases in regulation. But also we need to

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Speaker 2: throw across the top of that geopolitical concern. So at

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Speaker 2: the moment the Red Sea, no ships can access through

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Speaker 2: that way. So it's a very long and expensive way

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Speaker 2: to get to New Zealand at the moment.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So tourism's mired at eighty five percent generally of

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Speaker 1: what it was pre COVID is what you've just explained

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Speaker 1: why cruising's down or is cruising suffering the same issues

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Speaker 1: tourism broadly suffering.

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Speaker 2: Our issues are mainly the ones I'm talking about globally,

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Speaker 2: Cruises growing a great gumps and unfortunately New Zealand is

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Speaker 2: the only region globally that's actually seen the reduction. So

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Speaker 2: we're expecting about a twenty percent reduction in port cause

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Speaker 2: and passenger numbers this year.

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Speaker 1: Are our fees out of line with the rest of

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Speaker 1: the world in some way, shape or form.

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Speaker 2: Were talking to cruise lines and I was just speaking

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Speaker 2: to a handful of them last month. They have said

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Speaker 2: New Zealand has always been expensive, but this season we

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Speaker 2: are the most expensive region in the world that they're visiting.

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Speaker 2: And that is concerning because you're looking at an industry

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Speaker 2: that of course is you know, looking at their bottom

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Speaker 2: lines and making decisions on where they deployed due to costs,

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Speaker 2: and that deployment decisions are being made to go elsewhere.

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Speaker 1: And who are these people putting these foots on and

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Speaker 1: what's their justification?

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Speaker 2: A lot of it's costs recovery. So particularly after COVID,

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Speaker 2: obviously we know the border was shut and we did

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Speaker 2: have a reduction in arrivals and a lot of people

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Speaker 2: doing jobs that our guests. I need to look to

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Speaker 2: recover those costs in future. So it's increased costs around

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Speaker 2: the ports. We've seen an increase in customs levees which

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Speaker 2: starts on the first of December. That's going up by

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Speaker 2: about our one hundred and thirty six percent and an

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Speaker 2: additional eleven dollars per person.

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Speaker 1: Overseeing this, I mean goes. I understand, like, if you're

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Speaker 1: the Customs to partner, you go, oh, yeah, let's sting

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Speaker 1: the cruise ships. They're all rich. But I mean, doesn't

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Speaker 1: somebody at Union, I don't know New Zealand Tourism go

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Speaker 1: hold on here, this is going to damage us.

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Speaker 2: Look, I think it's more from a government levee. If

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Speaker 2: you level sorry, if you look at each individual costs

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Speaker 2: on their own, they make sense, but once you start

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Speaker 2: layering them together, it's actually quite a hefty chunk of change.

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Speaker 2: And I'd have to be honest too, it's not just

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Speaker 2: the cruise industry that's seeing this, it's the entire tourism industry.

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Speaker 2: You look at the increase in their international visitor levy,

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Speaker 2: increase in visa fees. They make sense to an extent,

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Speaker 2: but you pile them together, it becomes a very expensive

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Speaker 2: destination to visit.

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Speaker 1: Good on you, Jackie, appreciate it. Do we hand out

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Speaker 1: the bullet when we shoot ourselves in the foot? Do

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Speaker 1: you get that from the government as well or do

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Speaker 1: you have to bring your own gun for that particular exercise.

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Speaker 1: God christa blux and I'll talk to him about that tomorrow.

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Speaker 1: Speaking of which, tourism numbers as I alluded to and

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Speaker 1: will come a moment to the business of the immigration

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Speaker 1: and that's a complete disaster. But we're seeing some numbers

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Speaker 1: from China up. We're seeing some numbers from Australia. This

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Speaker 1: is tourism up. But we're still stuck at eighty five

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Speaker 1: percent of what we were so for the year, at

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Speaker 1: three point two to three million people coming to the

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Speaker 1: country year on a year. The biggest change is China, Australia.

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Speaker 1: What can I tell that's about it? Really? Korea, Japan,

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Speaker 1: Taiwan's sort of up. But we're mid We're stuck shooting

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Speaker 1: ourselves on the foot. And what's more, the people who

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Speaker 1: do come, we charge them more. How weird is that?

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