Tourism Minister Kelvin Davis wishes "good luck" to anyone wanting to set up a tourism business during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Minister told TVNZ 1's Marae this morning it’s the wrong time to be talking about tourism businesses opening in response to iwi Ngāi Tahu wanting concession cost relief and support to open new ventures inside its takiwā (tribal area).
"To be perfectly honest, you need to have tourists arriving," he said.
"I would say that those sorts of decisions need to be held off until there are more visitor numbers."
At the same time, the Minister’s advice is that the industry needs to "pivot away from international marketing to the domestic market".
The industry’s future, he says, lies in getting domestic travellers to "change our relationship with New Zealand as a holiday destination".
"Because, like it or not, we're here for the... rest of the year and part of next year probably, not able to travel overseas. And there's so many opportunities in New Zealand."
The tourism industry, once the country’s top earning sector, has collapsed in a few short weeks.
South Island iwi Ngāi Tahu has closed all but one of its tourism businesses and reduced its workforce from 348 kaimahi (staff) to 39.
Ngāi Tahu Holdings chief executive Mike Pohio compared the current environment to weathering a "category six cyclone".
"It’s so devastating across New Zealand, across the world, across all of our portfolio," he told Marae.
Mr Pohio wants the Government to provide relief around concession payments - the fees paid by tourism operators to operate their businesses.
He’d also like extensions to current concessions and support to open new businesses inside its tribal area, which would "better enable us to start up and have confidence that we are going to be working together for the long-term".
When asked about concession cost relief, Minister Davis says a number of measures are being considered ahead of this week’s Budget, including "a major emphasis ..on jobs and employment".
But he questioned the wisdom of opening up new business to the domestic sector in light of reduced visitor numbers.
He says "if somebody wants to try and set up a tourism business in the here and now, good luck to them".
Meanwhile, the crippled sector will hear more about the Government’s plan in Thursday's Budget.
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