The Trans-Tasman bubble will not be a silver bullet for every tourism destination over the winter months. Put simply – many kiwi destinations may struggle to attract Aussie travellers during the colder months, and instead will miss out on New Zealanders who head to warmer destinations across the ditch.
With a two-way Trans-Tasman bubble set to kick off after more than a year of border closures, my mind has turned towards thinking how travel patterns may have evolved in the intervening time.
New Zealand’s export performance has been an enduring good news story. Incredibly, the expansion to the trade surplus during 2020 has more than offset the reduction of foreign visitor spending to date.
A potential New Zealand-Cook Islands travel bubble is a perpetual mirage on the horizon for kiwi travellers. The bubble would not just be a boon for kiwi sunseekers, but it could also be a $200m+ form of ‘soft aid’ that is a saviour of the Cook Islands economy.
The school holidays are behind us. Parents may be sighing with relief their dear children are no longer running riot, but many of our visitor destinations are back on tenterhooks as they wait to see whether the initial sugar rush of domestic travel can be sustained.
GOOD NEWS STORY: New Zealand’s trade surplus is sitting at record levels. What’s more, the expansion to the trade surplus has more than offset reduced international visitor spending.
Jetstar is making a shrewd pitch for custom in the domestic market from people that are more price sensitive than they were in the relatively secure pre-Covid world. With people worrying more about their financial situations, there is arguably more scope for discount airlines to gain a bigger foothold than before.
Trump's travel ban on Europeans entering the US caught airlines, policymakers and travellers off guard. Coronavirus now poses a crisis-trifecta: Public health, economic and a financial crisis.
Things may get worse, before they get better, but Air New Zealand is a seasoned survivor. Following the Global Financial Crisis, the airline was one of the few to come through unscathed, remarkably remaining profitable even when the sky fell in for other airlines.
The economic impacts of coronavirus are already being felt in our regions. With this context in mind, it is important to recap some of the key channels through which regional economies are being affected.
Jetstar’s withdrawal from the regional market is a blow not just for consumers, but also economic and social development in the provinces.
Guest nights during February 2019 were down 0.4% from a year ago. The culprit was a 3.2% decline […]