New Zealand Hotel Industry Conference 2008

• Good News in relation to the tourism sector

• Bad News

• The key factor

• What’s at stake

• Our rankings

• Comparing New Zealand with Australia

• Issues arising

• The next revolution

Key points made in his presentation included: 

• The good news about the New Zealand tourism sector:  We have some of the world's top tourism destinations.

• The bad news: We rank only 19th among the world’s most competitive tourism destinations, according to a recent World Economic Forum survey

• Competitiveness counts

• Tourists’ standards and sensibilities keep rising on issues such as sustainability, climate change and social impact

• So, the lower we rank, the harder it is to: Attract customers, staff and capital; Invest in plant and people; Earn a return on investment; and earn a living from tourism as a business and as a country

• How can we earn a better living from tourism?

• The key factor: Environmental sustainability

• Right now, New Zealand is in a sweet spot in terms of its reputation as a sustainable environment. We could easily lose that

• New Zealand’s problem: If you measure greenhouse gases by the volume generated for every $1000 of economic activity, New Zealand is the 2nd most emissions intensive country in the OECD (Australia is the first)

• Attacks on New Zealand’s environmentally sustainable image have already started. We have much to lose

• The tourism sector has the most thoughtful and articulate industry strategy of any sector in New Zealand. But how do we make it work?

• Measuring and reducing emission levels are low down on the priority list for most New Zealand companies

• Australia generates 4 times the revenue that we generate from only twice the number of tourists

• You don’t have to be cheap to be successful in the tourism business. We would probably be more successful if we charged more

• Most of the tourism sector is below the value-add per employee for the rest of the economy. The New Zealand plastics industry has a plan to double its value-add per employee over the next decade. What is the tourism industry doing to address its own problems in this area?

• How can we get people to come to Auckland in July? How can we earn more from tourism in a sustainable way?

• Next steps for New Zealand: Acknowledge that there is a shift from an emphasis on economic reform to environmental reform.