Tourism in NZ was never meant to play by the rules
New Zealand tourism can be a wild ride: it splutters, it stalls, it gets close to crashing… and then... it takes off again.
We’ve lived through booms, busts, border closures and booking surges. But we’ve historically done one thing consistently well: we’ve refused to do things the normal way.
Bungy jumping? Inspired by a ritual in Vanuatu. Why not throw people off a bridge. Then take it to the world.
The Luge? Born from a desire to overtake people on a downhill track. Why not build a chairlift, some tracks and design your own carts. Then take it to the world.
Jet boating? Just a boat until someone asked "how do we get up these rivers?". Why not boat through 2 inches of water. Then take it to the world.
The Zorb? I have actually no idea ...!
These are all crazy ideas that everyone would say won't work... Until they do.
They were also built in a time when visitor demand was much lower than it is now. They were built for the visitor, not for the visitation metrics. I spoke with a hotel owner this week who said that Queenstown's occupancy in May used to run at below 10%. We've come a long way but our expectations about demand have changed. The future of demand is unknown but we can focus on our actions that do something about it - whether it's something new or not.
Innovation in tourism isn’t always about inventing something from scratch. Sometimes it’s about repurposing what already exists - whether that's product, price, promotion or something else. Done well with a dose of Kiwi ingenuity and a disregard for what’s “normal.”
We’ve done it before. And we’re doing it again.
Queenstown is now aiming to be the world’s first carbon zero visitor economy by 2030. A bold vision, crazy idea that people will quick to say wont work. Electrify Queenstown brought some of these ideas to life this week with electric boats, cable cars and buses, tractors, cars, bikes and more. Why not be the best at electric tourism innovation (that benefits our visitors, businesses and reduces impact on the community)?
Host-tech Queenstown last week was all about increasing tech and building productivity within what is a large but unproductive industry. The tourism tech space is innovating at pace and keeping up with the visitor expectations is difficult. Some of this tech is being built in Queenstown and scaling to the world. Why not build the world’s smartest visitor economy?
Why not build businesses so adaptive, so desirable, so clever they thrive regardless of the market cycle?
While others are still zigging back to pre-COVID playbooks, we gotta zag.
This doesn’t have to be a recovery era. This could be our next golden age - like post-2009, only wiser.
Testing new ideas. Evolving our metrics of success. Being unreasonable about the experiences we offer.
Because in New Zealand, one crazy idea done well has been enough to change everything and build an exceptional visitor economy.