Business owners from Northland down to Coromandel Peninsula are waiting with bated breath as a soggy start to Easter puts a damper on the prospects of a busy holiday period.
Northland is already down millions in revenue this summer due to storms and floods.
Many in the region are now pinning their hopes on the temporary opening of State Highway 1 at the Brynderwyn Hills letting visitors through for the holidays.
Waitangi National Trust chairman Pita Tipene said visitor numbers to the Treaty Grounds “have been halved" in recent months.
"We had Cyclone Halle where an alert was put out throughout the north, but it really turned out to be a non-event,” he said.
"However, a lot of people heard that on the media and didn't come."
Explore Group's William Goodfellow said cancellations and customer no-shows are common.
"Because were in a state of emergency, what it meant was that a lot of tour companies couldn't send coaches up there so there were cancellations which on the face of it seem very unnecessary," he said.
When the weather passed, damaged roads restricted visitors, including SH1, the “holiday highway”.
Now, it’s hoped the temporary reopening during the school holidays will see tourists return to the region.
"The closure of the Brynderwyns has come on top of Covid, on top of a weather event in January and February, on top of the cyclone," Northland Inc’s Paul Linton said.
The detours add hours to the journey and have been closed at times, too.
"I think it's the uncertainty," Tipene said.
"People don't really know the roads. When they hear the roads are closed, they think long detours through back roads and congestion."
Linton said the tourism industry "employs about 8000 people and the impact has been massive".
'A very tough next eight or nine months'
Waka Kotahi has given an update on the work so far and the challenges ahead. (Source: 1News)
Further south, the Coromandel Peninsula has also been hit hard by the floods and ongoing roading woes.
"We haven’t had much of a trading period through the entire summer," Thames Business Association CEO Sue Lewis-O’Halloran said.
The closure of State Highway 25A – which provides a key link from the east to the west of the peninsula – due to multiple slips in January has only exacerbated the situation.
Whangamatā business owner Phil Keogh said there "are a lot that are struggling".
"It will be a very tough next eight or nine months to get through."
It's also tough times in the town of Whitianga.
"Certainly a lot quieter than we would normally expect," Whitianga Motel owner Les Coomber said.
"We would be booked up early in the week for the weekend now – now we’re not."
A council survey has found many towns suffered close to a 50% drop in visitor spending, and more than a third of businesses expect to make redundancies.
A Government fund of nearly $4 million is providing some temporary relief.
But Thames-Coromandel mayor Len Salt said there is "longer-term support that needs to be there for the business community in terms of roading resilience and certainty of the future".
"That's what we need to work with the Government on, to get that investment in our roading network."
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