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An Australian tourism subsidy that will give tourists access to 800,000 half-price airfares would not work in New Zealand because domestic air travel has largely recovered from Covid-19, says a tourism professor.
On Thursday, Australia’s federal government announced a 1.2 billion Australian dollars (1.3 billion New Zealand dollars) support package to encourage Australians to visit the regions.
The package will include 800,000 half-price airfares initially to 13 key tourist regions starting April 1.
Qantas said the package would allow it to offer up to 32,000 rates per week at a 50 percent discount from average prices.
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AUT tourism professor Michael Lueck said that a similar scheme in New Zealand may be ineffective because Air New Zealand’s domestic capacity was close to pre-Covid levels, indicating that New Zealanders were already traveling the country. .
“If you want to support the tourism industry, that’s fine. There are ways to do it, but I think doing it through subsidized airfares would not work in New Zealand. “
ALDEN WILLIAMS / Stuff
Air New Zealand’s home network was operating at approximately 76 percent of pre-Covid capacity in the six months through December 31.
Air New Zealand’s home network operated at approximately 76 percent of pre-Covid capacity in the six months through December 31.
Taxpayers’ money would be better spent supporting “land tourism” operators, particularly those who suffer the most from the loss of international tourists, such as hotels, he said.
Rather than relying on government-issued tourist vouchers or brochures, operators should seek to reinvent themselves and the government could support this by providing funds to support new business models, he said.
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Aotearoa tourism industry executive director Chris Roberts says he hopes travel vouchers will continue to be considered.
Tourism Industry New Zealand (TIA) Chris Roberts said that
he hoped the government would consider a travel voucher.
In December, a spokeswoman for Tourism Minister Stuart Nash said the government had not considered granting subsidies to taxpayers in the form of vouchers or cash-back schemes to tourists.
In 2020, the government put together a $ 400 million tourism recovery package to help the industry recover from Covid-19. Of that, 270 million dollars were received by tourism companies.
Roberts said officials from the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment worked on a travel voucher concept in November and December.
But that work was later stopped, as the government focused on opening a travel bubble in Tasmania, which they announced would occur in the first quarter of 2021.
“Progress with the Tasmanian bubble appears to have run into political problems and both governments blame the other for not finalizing the deals.”
Roberts said he told Nash in February that TIA was still interested in a travel voucher to help stimulate domestic tourism.
“Domestic travel has been drastically reduced since the Christmas and New Years holidays. We would like to see Kiwis encouraged to travel in quiet times. “
A Nash spokeswoman said the Australian support package appeared to have things in common with measures already in place in New Zealand.
“We know the tour operators are making it difficult,” Nash said.
“The support was implemented immediately last year and we continue to look for ways to support businesses in all sectors of the economy.”
