Coronavirus Covid-19: Queenstown is a tourist city without tourists – Darren Lovell

OPINION:

There is a huge bloody elephant running through the streets of Queenstown and apparently no one can see it.

And if someone doesn’t do something soon, that damn big elephant is going to destroy our streets.

Our elephant, what no one seems to be talking about, is that we are a tourist city without tourists.

How does that work folks?

Guess what? It’s not like that.

We can pretend like we like how wonderful the school holidays were, how fantastic the marathon weekend was, and yes, I was told, hold on, an Australian travel bubble will be with us soon.

“Things are looking up,” my landlord writes, responding to my email explaining why I cannot pay the full amount of rent owed for the sixth month in a row.

“A vaccine is coming.”

Scream. I cry.

Nobody understands it?

We need the vaccine now.

We need our borders to open now.

We need tourists now.

Without them I don’t have a profitable business.

Raise your hands if the same applies to you?

I bet without asking you do it at Canyon Swing, KJet, NZONE, Eichardt’s, and so on.

Day by day, week by week, this city is dying and nobody, it seems, wants to talk about it.

They certainly don’t in Wellington, where they’re too busy patting each other on the back about how well the country is doing, how the price of an average home is skyrocketing, how unemployment isn’t as bad as they thought it was going to be. be. be.

Meanwhile, resort towns across the country crash like the All Blacks against the Pumas; no one saw it coming either.

The hard-working merchants, hoteliers and adventure tour operators in Te Anau will be terrified this summer, knowing that the buses transporting tourists from around the world to visit Milford Sound will not stop for a sandwich and a cup of tea in their town. .

The usual loot of the kiwi wanderers will still use the city as a launching pad to explore Fiordland National Park, but trust me, New Zealand tourists don’t pay rent.

There are not enough Kiwi tourists to sustain New Zealand; our population is smaller than Sydney’s.

How are souvenir shops surviving without tourists?

Does anyone ask you?

Does anyone care?

I make.

We all should.

Who buys one of those cute Global Culture t-shirts with a kiwi in jandals having a barbecue?

Aucklanders?

Realize there’s no line at Fergburger?

As a business owner in this city for the last 15 years, and successful at it, I use the Fergburger queue as a barometer to tell me how busy the city is.

When the line of burger lovers has passed The London, it’s time to add more staff to the roster.

Well, if there is no line, this is not cause for celebration, it is cause for concern.

Make sure you can find a park now, please.

Did anyone go to town the other Sunday?

Of course not. Nobody did. The city was dead. It was our calmest day.

Do you remember how vibrant everything was?

How our streets were filled with people from all over the world; how we laugh at tourists in line for a Cookie Time shake, despite the raucous pop music; how we drove, apparently hour after hour looking for a park.

How we soaked ourselves in everything, delighting in the idea of ​​how we could live in such a beautiful place and at the same time so energetic and cosmopolitan.

Every day felt like the weekend, every day was a party.

Well, the party is over and it’s Monday.

There’s a long week left before we see another weekend.

As our mayor hinted in these same pages a few weeks ago, not having international visitors is not sustainable.

A storm is coming and no one, unless, like me, has a business that relies on foreign visitors, can see it.

Someone I know who runs a retail store on Beach Street told me that he recently had to film the empty streets so he could show his masters in Auckland why his sales figures were so poor.

At this time last year, Fishbone, my restaurant since 2006, was gearing up for summer.

We employ 18 people.

Exactly 75% of our clients came from somewhere other than New Zealand.

On a summer night you couldn’t get a table without a reservation; Heck, you couldn’t get a table anywhere in town without a reservation.

Now Fishbone is gone.

The tank of crayfish I imported from Australia a decade ago is empty in the back of what is now Love Chicken – Pop UP and 18 Fishbone’s staff has been reduced to four.

I came up with Love Chicken because I felt like I had a better chance of surviving than Fishbone.

I do not regret the move; Love Chicken requires fewer staff.

But it’s 14 fewer people from a single business who aren’t going out to Cowboys or Little Blackwood or any of the other bars and restaurants in town on weekdays.

Fourteen young people who do not rent rooms, shop at FreshChoice or go
to the movies.

Fourteen people don’t spend money at Devil Burger.

We are a city without tourists, our population is shrinking and there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

I know that we cannot open our borders soon; I know that a travel bubble with Australia is still far away; I know there are no instant fixes but can we please stop pretending everything is fine?

We need to talk about Queenstown.

Not all it’s rigth.