𝕋𝕣𝕒𝕟𝕤-𝕋𝕒𝕤𝕞𝕒𝕟 𝕗𝕚𝕫𝕫𝕖𝕣? 𝕊𝕝𝕦𝕘𝕘𝕚𝕤𝕙 𝕤𝕥𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕋𝕒𝕤𝕞𝕒𝕟 𝕓𝕦𝕓𝕓𝕝𝕖 𝕥𝕠𝕦𝕣𝕚𝕤𝕞

𝕄𝕠𝕣𝕖 𝔸𝕦𝕤𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕒𝕟𝕤 𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕔𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕠 ℕ𝕖𝕨 ℤ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕥𝕙𝕒𝕟 ℕ𝕖𝕨 ℤ𝕖𝕒𝕝𝕒𝕟𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕤 𝕒𝕣𝕖 𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕧𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕥𝕠 𝔸𝕦𝕤𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕒 𝕒𝕤 𝕂𝕚𝕨𝕚𝕤 𝕗𝕖𝕖𝕝 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕖 𝕤𝕒𝕗𝕖 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕤𝕖𝕔𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕁𝕒𝕔𝕚𝕟𝕕𝕒 𝔸𝕣𝕕𝕖𝕣𝕟

A third more travellers are coming into New Zealand than going under the trans-Tasman bubble, but some in the travel sector say they are yet to see a boost in business from the relaxed border rules.

Daily movements across the border data tracked by Stats NZ shows that in the first nine days of the bubble, which launched on April 19, New Zealand welcomed 30,936 arrivals, with 20,796 departures over the same period. 

While a small number of people travelling to and from other countries are also included in these figures, the majority were those travelling quarantine-free between New Zealand and Australia.

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Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Chris Roberts said the volume was promising but a long way below normal traffic movements. “Over the same nine days in 2019, there were 177,000 arrivals into New Zealand and 191,000 departures,” Roberts said.

Airline data confirms the lopsided demand under the trans-Tasman bubble. Travel data firm ForwardKeys, which analyses flight booking data from International Air Transport Association members – including Air New Zealand and Qantas – found that of all trans-Tasman tickets issued as of April 12, 73 per cent were going from Australia to New Zealand.

Days before the bubble opened, Qantas and Jetstar reduced trans-Tasman capacity to reflect lower than expected demand, and on Friday, Air New Zealand chief executive Greg Foran told Stuff it had cut a few Tasman flights which were surplus to requirements.

But while the figures may paint New Zealand as the winner out of the quarantine-free travel arrangement, some in the tourism sector say they are yet to see much benefit from the influx of Australian visitors. 

Aimee Jones, marketing manager of Explore Group, which offers America’s Cup yacht sailing experiences out of Auckland's Viaduct, said the opening of the bubble hadn’t had a big impact on its business.

It had been a little busier recently with school holidays and the long weekend having just been, she said.

“But I wouldn't say we've seen an increase in Australian visitors as yet."

The group had noticed an increase in website traffic from Australia. 

"But it's not so much people on the ground."

Dale Brown, events and marketing manager at Waiheke vineyard Cable Bay, said it had been consistently getting about 50 Australian tourists a day since a few days after the bubble opened.

"It's been wonderful,” Brown said.

"Service has been great throughout the day."

He said they were celebrating, spending up large and enjoying the island destination.

“They're ordering oysters and really celebrating New Zealand produce.”

New Zealand Hotel Owners Association strategic director James Doolan said he did not have booking data but anecdotally there hadn’t been a massive jump in Australians booking accommodation.

But there were bookings coming into the ski season and a bit further out, he said.

"There's absolutely a pick-up, but it's not been a massive wall of new bookings."

Wayfare chief executive Stephen England-Hall said the tourism group, which has five brands in the South Island, including Cardrona Alpine Resort, Treble Cone and Real Journeys, was seeing “green shoots” in bookings, but again mostly for the ski season and later in the year.

“We’re certainly seeing a lift in ski pass sales from Australia, and we’re seeing bookings [out of Australia] start to come in for spring and summer for quite a variety of our products.”

At this stage, travellers on both sides of the ditch appear to have been using the bubble mostly as an opportunity to visit friends and family, with little appetite for package holidays and accommodation.

“We haven’t seen a holiday market yet,” said House of Travel chief operating officer Brent Thomas.

“Our thinking is that people are just waiting to see how the bubble works for the next few weeks. We would expect an uplift in bookings in May, once people get some confidence about how things work.”

Thomas also expected dropping temperatures in New Zealand would help fuel demand for a winter escape to Australia. 

“We’re all sitting here in anticipation of the first really decent bit of snowfall to come.”

Flight Centre NZ general manager product Victoria Courtney said in the days following the announcement of the bubble on April 6, the travel agency had reached around 85 per cent of pre-Covid trans-Tasman ticket sales, again “mostly from customers who have been eagerly awaiting a chance to visit friends and family”.

This “initial burst” of bookings was mostly for flights, though they had since seen package bookings increase as customers gained more confidence in international travel. 

Another business bucking the trend was Auckland Airbnb management company Zodiak.

Managing director Stefan Nikolic said it had experienced a huge surge in bookings since the bubble was announced.

Pre-Covid it managed 80 properties. During the pandemic that fell to about 40 properties but had increased recently to 60 properties.

A “massive influx” of tourists booking from Australia had been dragging up occupancy rates and prices by about 25 per cent since the bubble opened, he said. 

Bookings so far had been mostly from tourists, with some business travellers and a few people wanting to stay longer as they visited friends and family or looked to relocate to New Zealand, he said.

Figures from economist Tony Alexander’s spending plans survey, released a week before the bubble opened, showed the net proportion of respondents planning to cut back on international travel had fallen to just 10 per cent, down from 40 per cent the previous month.

A reason for the easing of this measure could be the imminent opening of a travel bubble with Australia.

“We have clear evidence of a shift in international travel plans and while it is impossible to translate this into numbers likely to travel, it does suggest some busy times on the trans-Tasman air route in the near future.”

Alexander said tourist operators had reason to be concerned about New Zealanders heading over to Australia to holiday.

“They are right to have that fear and so the challenge then is to get the Australian money coming in the other direction,” Alexander said.

“For the first few months it could be quite unreasonable to expect you will get that money because it seems to be friends and family staying at relatives’ houses.”

Until the winter ski season ramped up the bubble could result in a net negative for the accommodation sector, he said.

“I would imagine some were hoping for a bit more business by now.”

That was perhaps “desperation hope”, he said, because it seemed reasonable to assume the first visitors were going to be visor seeing friends and families.

The challenge for businesses would be getting the skilled labour needed for when Australians did start visiting in higher numbers, he said.

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“Maybe they’ve got two months to get ready for that.”

Come spring and summer there would be a greater dispersal of tourists around the country, he said.

“They won’t be coming for the skiing and then you will have genuine holidaymakers coming along.”

Business travel under the bubble has also started off sluggish.

APX Travel Management head of corporate Jenny Miller said there had not been a huge amount of trans-Tasman business travel yet.

“Most New Zealand businesses are taking a cautious approach with duty of care their focus and keeping their workforce Covid-free.”

A survey by recruitment agency Frog Recruitment of nearly 1000 New Zealand businesses, found 82.6 per cent of those polled were not considering a business trip to Australia any time soon.

Managing director Shannon Barlow said there was a high level of hesitancy in the business community about overseas travel.

Many of its clients were taking a "wait and see" approach.

"No-one wants to get stuck in Australia if the borders suddenly close – that would be disastrous for many people.”

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