Summer reissue: Spinoff cartoonist Toby Morris travels to Waitomo to see first hand the impact of Covid-19 on one of New Zealand’s oldest tourist destinations. First published 8 June, 2020. Independent journalism depends on you. Help us stay curious in 2021. The Spinoff’s journalism is funded by its members – click here to learn more … Read more
New polling shows New Zealanders expect to see the environment take a back seat to economic recovery, little change in fortune for low-paid essential workers, and a long wait for tourism to return to pre-Covid 19 levels, writes Stephen Mills of UMR Research. There’s been a lot of speculation about what changes the Covid-19 pandemic … Read more
The Side Eye is a monthly non-fiction comic by Toby Morris, supported by NZ On Air. Read the rest of the series here.
As the bars reopen and businesses regroup in post-Covid Queenstown, George Driver finds a town filled with bargain prices, eerie streets, fear and hope. A “tourism bloodbath”, a “broke, empty paradise” facing a “tsunami of unemployment”. The headlines about Queenstown have not been positive. Neither are the figures. Unemployment expected to hit 30%. Tourism, 55% … Read more
Budget 2020: Yesterday $50b worth of financial measures were committed to protect jobs in the industries most affected by Covid-19. So what did small business owners make of it? For many business, perhaps the most anticipated and welcome measure in the Covid-19 response budget was the $4bn support package, which included an eight-week wage subsidy … Read more
In a small community on a remote stretch of the West Coast, tourism operators contemplate a town without tourists. Halfway between Westport and Greymouth, Punakaiki usually heaves with rental cars, campers and buses during the summer. More than 400,000 people visit the unique geological formations known as the pancake rocks every year, according to a … Read more
While New Zealand may continue to prosper from the tourist dollar for a decade or two yet, there is the very real prospect that the climate crisis will drive international tourism down, writes James Renwick. The headline read “Tourism industry working to ensure a sustainable future” but there was scant evidence of true sustainability thinking … Read more
New Zealand has long been the world’s imagined lifeboat – and increasingly for something more than just escape, writes Elle Hunt. One Friday morning in January 1847, Charles Dickens wrote to his friend John Forster that he was “disposed to go to New Zealand and start a magazine”. The quote was circulated in an editorial … Read more
A stream of overseas visitors has shown me how the NZ tourism industry needs to encourage more environmentally friendly behaviour, writes Jai Breitnauer. “If you don’t want them, I guess just chuck them out,” my friend told me, gesturing to the pile of stuff on the deck. “That’s what we would have had to do … Read more
A group of tourists have been travelling the country (Auckland) leaving litter and unpaid restaurant bills in their wake. Government-appointed negotiator Madeleine Chapman tries to reason with them. Kia ora Sir, My name is Madeleine Chapman and I’m here to negotiate on behalf of the New Zealand government and its citizens. You can tell me … Read more
On Megyn Kelly’s new show Keith Morrison delivers a high-gloss paean to New Zealand, where US citizens are apparently flocking following the demise of the American dream. Branko Marcetic tunes in. When former Fox News-host Megyn Kelly put out the third episode of her new NBC show, most probably expected they’d direct their outrage at … Read more
It’s survival of the fittest in the NZ tourism industry, where some regions struggle for visitors while our biggest hotspots can hardly cope – all while our government resolutely rejects a tourist tax to help fix the places worst affected by the visitor onslaught. Little wonder New Zealanders increasingly feel that tourism is getting out … Read more
Residents of rural towns are facing astronomical bills to support basic infrastructure. In Glenorchy, a mecca for film and tourism, they’re mad as hell and not going to take it any more, writes Peter Newport. User pays. Sounds fair doesn’t it? You use – you pay. But for many small towns around New Zealand being … Read more
Driving in Queenstown has become a kind of Russian roulette. Platitudes about ‘education’ won’t cut it: we need a tourist licence requirement, and urgently, argues Peter Newport. The ability of Governments to ignore reality is fairly well established but the deaths and chaos around Queenstown being caused by overseas drivers has to stop. I was … Read more
As visitor arrivals reach unprecedented levels and our environment and infrastructure buckle beneath the pressure, Don Rowe argues that it’s time tourists paid their fair share. New Zealand has the highest rate of threatened species in the world. Birds, dolphins, bats – you name a family, we’ve got a species on the precipice of extinction. Our rivers … Read more