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Just under 4,000 people were at the Hanmer Springs thermal pools on Saturday. (File photo)
Tourist towns enjoy a “bump in the arm” from the long Easter weekend.
Good Friday and Easter Monday have given Kiwis a chance to enjoy a four-day weekend, and it is clear that many have headed to popular visitor spots like Hanmer Springs, Franz Josef, Havelock North and Queenstown.
Tour operators and accommodation providers especially welcomed the busy weekend, given the devastating impact the Covid-19 pandemic has had on their once thriving industry.
A Queenstown hotel owner reported being three times busier this weekend than in recent months. The owner of a Franz Josef restaurant said this Easter was the busiest so far in 2021.
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Graeme Abbot, general manager of Hanmer Springs Thermal Pools in North Canterbury, said about 4,000 people visited on Saturday. A typical weekend in March or April would be just 2,000-2,200 people, he said.
Maria Feliza Inez / Magic Memories Hanmer Springs
People enjoying a dip in the Hanmer Springs thermal pools on Sunday.
“The city is full, and there is a very good atmosphere on the street in terms of people hanging around and shopping and playing miniature golf and all the other things,” Abbot said.
Franz Josef, on the West Coast, was “very busy” Saturday and Sunday, according to Alpine Glacier Motel manager Mark Gibson. He was busier than I expected.
The visitors were a “big respite” for the small town and “gave us a little nudge,” said Gibson, who is also the manager of the Snakebite Brewery restaurant on Main Street.
Several travelers told him that they traveled to Franz Josef because they wanted to help the city, which relies heavily on tourism.
Kavinda Herath / Things
Totally Tourism Director Mark Quickfall talks about the tourism industry in New Zealand after Covid-19.
“We were impressed by [that],” he said.
Alexandra Tylee, of Pipi Cafe and Foodtruck in Havelock North, said it has been more crowded than previous Easter with many outsiders descending on “the Bay.”
“They are Wellingtons and Auckland people … they are people who travel all over New Zealand.”
Greytown store owner and organizer of the opening of New Zealand’s National Tweed Walk on Saturday, Adam Blackwell, said the city was “absolutely crazy” over the weekend.
He attributed the increase in activity to the good marketing cooperation between the retailers and Destination Wairarapa, as well as the influx of people who came to participate in the new event.
Mike Heydon / Stuff
The inaugural New Zealand National Tweed ride was held in Greytown on Saturday.
He estimated that 120 people participated in the first annual Tweed Ride on Saturday afternoon.
Mark Rose said The Rees Hotel in Queenstown, of which he is the CEO, was three times busier this weekend than any other weekend in recent months.
Only yesterday there were 15 walk-ins, he said. “[It is] a big problem to have. “
“He shoots us in the arm to keep going. I mean, it’s obviously been a long year here, “Rose said of the weekend.
The money raised this weekend would help reach the long-awaited trans-Tasman bubble, he said.
Air Safaris CEO Richard Rayward said there had been a large influx of people at Tekapo, in the Mackenzie district of the South Island, also over the weekend.
Traffic in the city was “pretty hectic”.
Hurricane force winds had prevented his business from blowing up on Sunday, which he described as “a bit frustrating.”
John Kirk-Anderson / Stuff
Franz Josef, on the West Coast, was the busiest since shortly after Christmas, according to a motel owner. (File photo)
