In May this year Destination Queenstown (DQ) released its first visitor demand mapping report which used an array of current and historic economic and tourism surveys and data to put forward three demand scenarios for Queenstown Lakes tourism following this year’s COVID-19 crisis.

In 2019 tourism contributed $1.7 billion to the Queenstown Lakes economy, or 55 per cent of the region’s GDP. The area has seen huge growth in tourism GDP since 2000 when it was $224 million, representing 24 per cent of the region’s total GDP.

The future demand scenarios for Queenstown and Wanaka – conservative, mid and optimistic – give possible total monthly tourism spend in the two tourist hotspots from three market segments: regional and domestic, Australia, and long-haul international markets.

The optimistic view looks at a best case scenario of how fast the markets return to New Zealand and our region, and incorporates a confident forward outlook of economic indicators in these specific markets which will drive interest and visitation.

The conservative view is a worst case scenario or extremely cautious assessment of the time it will take for international borders to open.

The mid scenario is an average of the optimistic and conservative views, a moderate position on the economic condition of the source markets, and a slower return of visitor demand.

The report is being updated every fortnight with the original report and the updates available on DQ’s website.

The report’s demand scenarios for Wanaka were developed in consultation with Lake Wanaka Tourism.

The external factors that influence visitor arrivals into Queenstown and Wanaka are similar, consequently the demand growth rates are also similar, although there are slight differences between the two within the domestic market.

Wanaka businesses can use the report to look at the overall demand scenarios and draw their own conclusions on the relative size and likely timing of when the various market segments will return.

The most recent update on July 1 sees the first major change in the demand scenarios since the report was first published in May 2020. It states: “Due to the increase in COVID-19 cases in New Zealand over the last two weeks, all coming across international borders, the optimistic view on the trans-Tasman bubble opening has been postponed from September 2020 to January 2021. This will have a significant impact on the predicted spend for Queenstown, as a September start would have seen Australian tourists here for some of the ski season. This revision in the Australian market coming online has, in turn, decreased the total spend in Queenstown by 12 per cent for FY 2020-21 in the optimistic scenario.”

The report’s author, DQ’s business development director Kiran Nambiar, says feedback on the report from local tourism businesses has been “incredible in terms of how useful members find this information to take their own decisions”.

“While it will be relatively easy to get patriotic Kiwis to explore their own backyard, it will be more difficult to convince them to participate in the tourism economy by increasing their domestic holiday spend,” the report states.

“To enable consumption of more tourism products while on holiday in the Queenstown region, our products will need to re-align the experience they offer to suit the pockets of the domestic market. Shorter trips and value add offerings that could potentially increase perceived value for the domestic consumer but keeps

profitability at the same level would be the ideal outcome. Successfully converting demand from the domestic market for winter 2020 is crucial for survival of most Queenstown Lakes district businesses. About 55-65 per cent of Queenstown-Lakes district ski visitors are domestic.”

Lake Wanaka Tourism (LWT) has several active campaigns in place to help local businesses and attract domestic visitors while New Zealand is in Alert Level 1 with borders closed to international travellers.

LWT’s Gizelle Regan says the LoveWanaka, Supporting Local programme created some incredible results in terms of social sharing and awareness during its May launch, particularly for businesses which were open and operating during Alert Level 3.

Their winter ski campaign called ‘The Mountains Are Waiting’ is currently supporting the marketing initiatives of our snowsport suppliers and they also ran a successful promotion around Queen’s Birthday weekend.

Tourism New Zealand figures showed Wanaka enjoyed an 82% increase in domestic visitor numbers during the week of 26 May to 1 June (Queen’s Birthday) and the seven days prior.

This story was commissioned by The Wanaka App and written by Kate Gordon-Smith of Relish Communications.

IMAGE: Supplied