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Speaker 1: Everyone must go. There's your new strap line for the

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Speaker 1: latest attempt to drag the tourism number back to some

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Speaker 1: form of normality, given it's still in the high eighties

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Speaker 1: of what it was pre COVID. We're after the Aussies

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Speaker 1: this time. It's the shoulder season. Short sharp hit tourism

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Speaker 1: New Zealand. Boss Arena de Manche's back with us. Morning

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Speaker 1: to you, Good morning, Mike. Doesn't Australia exemplify everything that's

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Speaker 1: gone wrong with tourism? And I mean it's not hard

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Speaker 1: to get here. They don't need a visa, the dollar

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Speaker 1: is good, the distance is fine, they know of us,

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Speaker 1: and yet they still haven't come back.

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Speaker 2: Well, Austrailia is about about eighty eight percent recovered, but

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Speaker 2: actually the holiday arrival numbers in the last six months

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Speaker 2: are up just over one hundred percent, so it's been

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Speaker 2: good to see that. But you're right, we want more

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Speaker 2: Australians and we want to drive a faster recovery and

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Speaker 2: hence this kind of boost campaign that we announced yesterday

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Speaker 2: that'll go live in the next couple of days.

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Speaker 1: How does this work? Do the government have to cajole

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Speaker 1: you guys to cooperate or are you out there cooperating

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Speaker 1: and doing your own thing anyway, and the government actually

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Speaker 1: don't need to be involved in this.

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Speaker 2: No. Look, we work best when we work and partnerships.

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Speaker 2: In this case, we've worked with airlines across the Ditch

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Speaker 2: and as well as accommodation providers here in New Zealand

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Speaker 2: to go. Look, we'll put up the marketing that you

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Speaker 2: put up some deals into the mix and then you know,

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Speaker 2: one plus one equals three. So that is generally how

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Speaker 2: we work and that's how we'd like to work. The

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Speaker 2: benefit here is that the government has given us a

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Speaker 2: boost of the five hundred thousand dollars to be able

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Speaker 2: to just accelerate and drive some urgency and to get

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Speaker 2: people to book out.

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Speaker 1: Without singling anyone out. I did read over the holidays

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Speaker 1: there are major takeoff and arrival time problems with there

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Speaker 1: in New Zealand. Are there certain aspects of this that

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Speaker 1: don't work that well?

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Speaker 2: Well, Look, I mean travel times and logistics are always

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Speaker 2: going to be part of it. But the good thing

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Speaker 2: with Australia is, you know, I think we've got six

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Speaker 2: ports of entry now with the new services into Hamilton

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Speaker 2: also coming on stream later this year, so there's lots

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Speaker 2: of choice, both from an airline's perspective, Air New Zealand, Quantus,

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Speaker 2: Jetstar Plus. You know, I think it is six ports

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Speaker 2: of entry into the country, so lots of different ways

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Speaker 2: to get in.

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Speaker 1: What's your vibe, your gut feel? Though, there's no excuse

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Speaker 1: think about it Australia. Everyone in Australia knows New Zealand.

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Speaker 1: The dollar is good, the distance is good, the airlines's

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Speaker 1: plenty of choice. Why aren't they choosing us? There's got

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Speaker 1: to be something that's just not quite right.

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Speaker 2: Well, the good news is at the back of the

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Speaker 2: back end of last year, actually New Zealand bounced back

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Speaker 2: to being the number one outbound destination out of Australia.

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Speaker 2: But you're right. Travel is discretionary and competitive, right, so

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Speaker 2: you think about your own behavior. You want to go

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Speaker 2: on holiday first, and then you go which are the

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Speaker 2: two or three places I want to go to? So

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Speaker 2: this is about just jolting them, getting a bit of

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Speaker 2: urgency and going hey, you know, reminding them that we're here,

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Speaker 2: and ultimately saying, you know, book now home over now,

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Speaker 2: come in the late summer, come in the autumn.

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Speaker 1: I hope it works. China and visas you've got a

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Speaker 1: view on that or not.

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Speaker 2: Well, China is you know, is a big part. It

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Speaker 2: has been probably the slowest market to recover, certainly of

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Speaker 2: the major markets. You know, visare is anine entity for

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Speaker 2: Chinese travelers. They have to get visas for many countries countries,

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Speaker 2: but what's really important is make sure that New Zealand

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Speaker 2: is really enticing as a place to visit and so

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Speaker 2: encouraging to see what's the market's still behind. We've had

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Speaker 2: a really good if you look at year on year growth,

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Speaker 2: it's growing an eighty percent and actually the learning New

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Speaker 2: year from what I'm hearing, which was late January, I

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Speaker 2: haven't got the exact numbers yet but was pretty positive.

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Speaker 1: Hope, so good to catch up, appreciate it. Rene de

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Speaker 1: monshe's the Tourism New Zealand CEO. For more from the

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Speaker 1: Mic Asking Breakfast, listen live to news talks that'd be

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