Nihao. Huan ying, huan ying!

The surge in visitors from China impresses Bernard Hickey and he calls for us to 're-tool' our tourism efforts to welcome them. You ready for Chinese street signs?

23rd Dec 12, 10:03am by Bernard Hickey

Almost 40% more Chinese visitors came to New Zealand in the year to November.

By Bernard Hickey

Nihao. Huan ying, huan ying!

This is a phrase every New Zealander and certainly every New Zealand tourism business should commit to memory.

It is Chinese for hello and a very sincere welcome.

It's also a phrase that should be built into their business plans. Unfortunately, for most tourism businesses, it's not and it's something we need to do quickly.

The growth in Chinese tourism to New Zealand in the last year is stunning, thanks largely to the beginning of daily flights by China Southern from Guangzhou in the south of China.

Short term visitor arrivals have risen 39.2% to 191,488 in the year to the end of October.

That made China the third largest contributor of tourists to New Zealand after Australia and Britain, and ahead of America.

Chinese tourism is forecast by NZIER to surpass British tourism next year and more than double by 2018.

The trouble for New Zealand is Chinese tourists currently spend much less per night and spend fewer nights here than British, German or American tourists. About two thirds travel in tour groups run by Chinese companies that visit Chinese owned stores.

NZIER also forecast the number of British, German and American tourists to fall over the next 6 years because of their weak economies and the strong New Zealand dollar.

Total spending from these traditional markets is forecast to fall from around NZ$2 billion a year in 2005 to almost NZ$1 billion by 2018. Chinese spending, meanwhile, is expected to rise to NZ$680 million from NZ$220 million over the same period.

That's great, but it obviously doesn't make up for the fall in tourism from traditional markets.

New Zealand needs to retool its tourism sector over the next decade in the same way it retooled its farming industry over the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s after Britain joined the European Union.

The work has started, but the sense of urgency or national awareness is nowhere near the same level that New Zealand had in the early 1970s as Britain joined the EU.

Auckland Airport and the Tourism Industry Association put out an excellent paper in late September about the need for a change in thinking on the China market. Just last week Auckland Airport and Tourism New Zealand signed a memorandum of understanding with China Southern to improve links. It was signed during a special trip to New Zealand by China Southern's executive team and 250 Chinese travel agents on one of its Airbus 380s.

New Zealand's tourism sector needs to retool the way it operates to embrace Chinese visitors and provide the sort of high value, high excitement, luxury travel experiences that are on offer to British, American and German tourists.

Obtaining visas for independent travellers from China will have to be easier.

Signs and public announcements will have to be in Chinese as well as English.

Campervans will need to include instructions in Chinese.

Staff in restaurants, duty free stores and hotels will have to learn Chinese.

Bungee operators will have to explain in Chinese how to jump.

I've said it before, but why isn't New Zealand making Chinese its third language and teaching it much more widely in schools? We now have a major base of Chinese speakers in Auckland to help us do that.

Where's the National strategy to retool our economy? A lot more needs to be done.

Auckland Airport got the ball rolling this week. It started including Chinese in its public announcements to departing traveling travelers about the need to fill out in their departure forms and pack their liquids, gels and aerosols in a separate bag.

Perhaps, collectively, New Zealand needs to learn how to say: "Nihao Huanying huanying" as well as "Haere Ra and thanks for the dough."

-----------------------------------------------------------------

This article first appeared in the Herald on Sunday. It is used here with permission.

We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment

Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.

38 Comments

by Gummy Bear Hero | 23rd Dec 12, 10:53am 1356213198

They arrive on Chinese owned and operated airlines , and two thirds travel in Chinese tour groups and visit Chinese run stores ? ....... so what positive contribution are these people making , Bernard ..... show me the munny !!!

....... we should ban Chinese from visiting NZ , because they're crowding out our established tourism markets , the Brits , Ozzies , Yanks & Japanese .

Gee whizz Bernard , in Queenstown we put up dual signs with Japanese written on them , 'cos Japan was the new great superpower ....... back in the 1980's .......and we assumed they'd be our financial lifeline to the prosperous emerging markets of Asia ...

.. and you don't think that the modern China economic miracle is going to go the same way as the resurgent Japanese economy went , roaring over the fiscal cliff ?

by Stephen Hulme | 23rd Dec 12, 11:28am 1356215324

so what positive contribution are these people making , Bernard ..... show me the munny !!!

Tourism Industry Association chief executive Martin Snedden said China was "booting ahead" month after month, with state forecasts suggesting visitors could double in five years or so.

"The challenge with China is not about numbers but value," he said, to get visitors to stay longer and spend more.

About 70 per cent of Chinese visitors come to New Zealand for a three-day shopping trip after visiting Australia. But there were "strong restrictions" where visitors could shop on those tours.

"The shopping trips are controlled by Chinese operators based in China or Australia . . . and the bulk of the profits [as much as half] from these trips is retained offshore," Snedden said.

The tourism sector was trying to give "viable alternatives" to those shopping trips.

"They don't get the best experience . . . and the value from them is not retained in New Zealand," Snedden said. "So the numbers look good but the value is nowhere near as good as it should be." Read article

I guess the Chinese cleaning up in Australia come here for a break and enjoy the existing western style attractions more suited to improving the skills required to drive high powered German cars.

by Gummy Bear Hero | 23rd Dec 12, 6:19pm 1356239991

.... remember all those years ago , when the statistics on Japanese tourism to NZ was going gangbusters , and the Minister of Transport joined the general consensus of tweety birds , cooing about our new found wealth .... and he even suggested we should assist those tourists by changing which side of the road we drive on ..... to accommodate them , our new Japanese tourists of gold , frankensense and d'uh .......

'Cos Maurice Williamson was too thick to realise that the Japanese drive on the left , as we do , anyway ......

....... nyuk , nyuck , nyaaaaaaaaaaah ! ... only a politician could be such a schmuck ... well , until someone twaddled into view with the article printed up above .... Merry Christmas Bernard !

by speckles | 23rd Dec 12, 11:29am 1356215370

tourism is such a fragile thing, anyone involved in Queenstown knows it is as random as the snow, economics of overseas markets and it is all summed up when you consider the great big growth area is currently aussie tour groups coming for golf, only for a few months of the year mind you.

by Wolly | 23rd Dec 12, 11:46am 1356216384

The difference between our 'normal' tourists...ockers poms and the like...and 'the little red book wavers' is something Tweak and Fiddle ought to know about, but they won't.....Poms Ockers and the like are so easily manipulated by their respective idiot govts...not, while the Chinese would never abandon NZ as a tourist destination just because their Beijing bosses told em to...doh..

So if Tweak and Fiddle ever bother to think...they might ...just maybe....come to realise their policies are soon to be dictated to them by a corrupt sod in Beijing...It will be a case of 'do as we say' or the tourist tap will be turned off..100% off.

by Henry_Tull | 23rd Dec 12, 3:27pm 1356229650

yes, the contrast between a relationship and a dependency....

by Matt in Auck | 23rd Dec 12, 1:41pm 1356223279

Agree with others here that China offers limited real opportunity, for reasons others have articulated the Chinese tourists don't actually spend much in the local economy. Looking at the big tourist numbers is rather misleading

Getting that to change would be a herculean effort. Over time the Japs moved away from tours to independent travel, somewhat. Elderly Japs still tend to visit Aus/ NZ on tours. Younger Japs tend to prioritise Europe,Asia, Aus and USA over NZ

Nz should keep on focussing on Aus. Got so many workmates who have recently been or are going soon. All have loved NZ. Continued concerted effort on Aus will get more value than China

by hane | 23rd Dec 12, 10:32pm 1356255139

Hard to take your comment seriously amidst the WWII era racial epithets. Shame on you.

by scarfie | 24th Dec 12, 6:35pm 1356327307

Is that really any worse than say Poms or Yanks? Is it not about context?

by doublegz | 25th Dec 12, 11:18pm 1356430709

Definitely ban the Chinese from coming to NZL!!! Bring back the poll tax on Chinese immigrants during the 19th and early 20th centuries!!!~

by NeilD | 23rd Dec 12, 4:07pm 1356232044

.....sounds like a loss Leader..!!

by ngakonui gold | 23rd Dec 12, 2:53pm 1356227638

How do we know that these Chinese tourists aren't hard line pinko party members who are actually highly qaulified engineers etc looking for suitable spots in NZ from where to launch an invasion of NZ.

An airport on Crafar farms land looks a good start.

by David George | 23rd Dec 12, 6:07pm 1356239259

I happened to be in Paihia when there was a cruise ship in the Bay of Islands earlier in the year.

The stall holders flogging their nick nacks on the villiage green where very quiet - the Asian tourists were swarming over the rocks at each end of the beach stripping everything remotely edible - mussels, periwinkles, whatever. True story. A lot of the locals were pretty pissed off.

These were, presumeably, wealthy and, certainly well dressed tourists but, apart from what they spend with their Asian owned operators and businesses here, what is the net benefit for us?

by iconoclast | 23rd Dec 12, 6:49pm 1356241752

Yes, Look at "coastwatch" where 50% of the pillagers apprehended by the Ministry of Fisheries are NOT locals or Maori, more like asian restaurant proprietors gathering their FREE supplies.

by Stephen Hulme | 23rd Dec 12, 9:33pm 1356251615

Witnessed exactly that race type numbering ~8 in both the bay preceding and mine in Eastbourne, at low tide, yesterday.

by scarfie | 24th Dec 12, 6:37pm 1356327437

Surely offender information is collected by MAF? Be interesting to confirm these observations.

by steven | 24th Dec 12, 7:07am 1356286042

Still collecting GST, PAYE.....etc. The chinese businesses are still buying power, phone...paying rates.

What to the British tourists do? often stay with relatives...hire a camper van for 2 months....hardly big spenders....but then at least they are really seeing NZ.

I would suggest that this is the quality of the tourists, and a mind set. I mean if you went to spain you would see the typical working class pom who wants british beer and fish'n chips just like home. They would also be minded I suspect by party ppl.....

I was kind of gob smacked last year when I came across a bunch of chinese standing in front of what I would describe as a crappy block of concrete flats taking it in turns to get their picture taken. Those flats would be fairly similar to chinese flats...maybe to show the ppl at home that NZers are no better off? dunno wierd.

regards

by Chris-M | 24th Dec 12, 9:36am 1356294998

Are you sure about them paying their taxes. They seem to like cash buisness's, pay under the minimum wages, under the table. Purchases transacted back in China. It would be interesting to see just how much tax avoidance goes on in that quarter.

As others have noted the net benefit of these tourists is probably neglible and the impost on the nation is not worth it. In the best of circumstances Tourisim is a pretty low grade enterprise and offers only very low grade, low skill and meanial employment. I suppose positions in the Chow brothers new Auckland establishment may pay a bit more.

by steven | 24th Dec 12, 10:42am 1356298968

and what about your "tax evasion"? Nice little tax free sellup when you retire? You know there is no difference in my eyes.

IRD will be interested in such goings on in the chinese importes IMHO if its there. Sure they can evade....however there is little evidence of this in the courts that I know of....show us some.

Tourism is indeed a low pay sector and its going to get tougher....

regards

by iconoclast | 24th Dec 12, 10:59am 1356299951

Steven

About 2 weeks ago I put up a link which differentiated between resident and non-resident taxpayers. What it boiled down to is this. If the tour operators are registered in new zealand as new zealand domiciled businesses they will be subject to IRD oversight, and will pay tax. If they are NOT, then their tax liability is NIL. Yes, they will pay Fuel Excise on internal travel, consuming fuel, and GST on local consumables, ie restuarant meals etc etc. Don't know about the PAYE and GST if they are not nz operations. These are very shrewd people, and the way they ring-fence their operations is evidence of that.

by Chris-M | 24th Dec 12, 11:41am 1356302512

What is to stop these people running Chineese Eftpos terminals in NZ over the internet. Try and track those transactions down.

by Chris-M | 24th Dec 12, 11:49am 1356302975

Retired. You are right and you are wrong. I have always taken a pride in paying my taxes and it may surprise you that there are still some individuals and companies that do. Apart from the matters of honour and pride (how often do you hear those terms these days), there is a trap in running matters to minimise tax rather than maximize income. Often people get themselves into all sorts of silly situations and take their attention away from the most important matters when trying to evade tax.

Right in that we do not have a capital gains tax and while I have benefitted I think that this is very detrimental to the whole country and have agitated accordingly.

by steven | 24th Dec 12, 6:56am 1356285381

Maybe chat to schools as they are still offering japanese and no chinese. In fact there has been no interest what so ever in our area in offering Mandarin but most schools have a japanese teacher/lesson.

German also, hardly a language for us IMHO. For asia though Mandarin makes huge sense as there is usually a large % of ppl of chinese descent all over.....

Re-toolng has to start there. NB...wasnt Japanese the thing some years back? where is Japan these days on the radar?

regards

by David George | 24th Dec 12, 9:04am 1356293097

"where is Japan these days?"

Kyle Bass:

in the last 2 months we believe Japan has crossed that proverbial Rubicon. We think that you've seen 20 years of conjecture regarding Japan's eventual demise. And now we see a point where, in the last couple months what you see is a continued deterioration in their balance of trade. It's actually running at about negative $100 billion or close to 10 trillion Yen. And we think given this resurgence of Chinese nationalism over the Senkaku crisis [disputed islands], you're going to see that move another 1.5 to 2 percent or another $100 billion. Put that in perspective. What that means is we could see full current account negativity in Japan in October. That's something nobody is ready for.

Think about it. You have a secular decline in the population, you have a balance of trade that is literally being rewritten and falling off a cliff, and their GDP is now tracking negative 3.5 or 4 percent.

So what has to happen in Japan. Now their backs are against the wall. They have a full crisis, and they absolutely have to change the manner in which they deal with their currency. And so we think over the last couple of months they have crossed the final Rubicon that turns the whole situation around and weakens the Yen from a currency perspective. Then you are going to start to see, we think, in the next 12-18 months a move in their rates.

Basically Japan is entering its final checkmate phase of the game.

Read more at http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/12/kyle-bass-on-end-of-debt-supercycle.html#xrsH7ViQmmq1zZB7.99

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t7Si3XTl6zQ

by steven | 24th Dec 12, 10:38am 1356298696

Japan sat there for 20+years and didnt fix its problems of bad banks, its limped along slowly declining while the "outside" world did quite well. Now the outside world is doing a Japan and Japan's GDP decline is 4% as a result. That should be telling ppl that Japan is going to do worse over time let alone everyone else.

What applies to Japan also applies to the developed world of course...maybe just a few years behind....

regards

by jh | 24th Dec 12, 4:35pm 1356320133

A Chinese tour guide told me that some of the Chinese drivers sit in the motels in Rotorua and brag about how much they ripped "those people off". Operators need to counter that by displaying prices etc in Mandarin.

............

What we need is an international language, a combined effort reflecting all the worlds populations. It's an idea that makes sence but for the power of vested interests and elites: a few billion people who would like to be able to communicate versus elite language experts who love and treasure a particular langauge.

by Mike B | 24th Dec 12, 11:13pm 1356343981

Online, English has become a common language for users from around the world. In the process, the language itself is changing.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20332763

Users of Facebook already socialise in a number of different "Englishes" including Indian English, or Hinglish, Spanglish (Spanish English) and Konglish (Korean English). While these variations have long existed within individual cultures, they're now expanding and comingling online.

Some words are adaptations of traditional English: In Singlish, or Singaporean English, "blur" means "confused" or "slow": "She came into the conversation late and was blur as a result."

Others combine English words to make something new. In Konglish, "skinship" means intimate physical contact: handholding, touching, caressing.

Yes Bernard, we even have Maoglish (Maori English) words like "Bro" and "Cuz" or hadn't you noticed?

by Mike B | 24th Dec 12, 11:35pm 1356345300

It would have been nice to have seen some real data on tourism.

Is it really that profitable? Looking back over the years

How much money has come into the country, from tourism, in total, from all countries each year.

Subtract how much NZers spend overseas on their trips (Government and bureaucrats in particular).

Subtract the tourism industry and all that overseas advertising.

Subtract money to Warner Bro to promote NZ

Subtract all that borrowed money to have the Rugby World cup.

As well as all these things what about councils.

Millions of dollars to have V8 car races, Flower shows, Wearable arts and so on. How much do councils spend?

Then there's cycle tracks and much, much more

I think that at the end of the day all we end up with is jobs and overseas trips for the boys and a pile of low paid jobs for the rest.

by Small Kev | 25th Dec 12, 12:20am 1356348002

Another interesting thing, The Chinese version of the auckland property press is now available on every china southern flight. They are able to browse the properties before they even arrive. Soon enough there will be real estate agents on the flight signing deals....

Two things they are interested in the most, casino, properties.

by Mike B | 26th Dec 12, 11:11am 1356473494

I don't mind tourist comming here but not at our expence.

Take border security, the government is cutting back, because WE can't aford it. It is them that are trying to bring in food and drugs, not us, so why should we subsidise their holliday?

Every plane that lands at an airport from overseas should pay a landing fee, not for airport profits only, but it should cover the full cost of border security. Even if that means tens of thousands of dollars per plane. We should neither subsidise their holliday, as Bernard and John key want, nor allow our border security to be run down just to please the tourists. Especially bio-security and the risk to our farming.

by offcut | 27th Dec 12, 6:26pm 1356586006

Haha what a news item on TV 2nite; it appears a chinese tour operator dropped 20 of his/her paying tourists into the Auck City mission Xmas lunch. Sums it all up perfectly I say! A real taste of the tourism 'culture' perhaps?

by jh | 28th Dec 12, 5:23pm 1356668617

From the Boston Globe:

"At once, we are swallowed by a primeval forest. Everywhere, ferns unfold like alien seedpods. Huge fungi climb up rotting trunks. We hear the trickle of water and the cries of birds.

At the summit, we eat our packed lunch looking out over the mountains of Fiordland. A South Island robin hops up, as if to demonstrate the fearlessness of New Zealand birdlife, and sits watching us from within arm's reach.

That evening, I meet Julia Wolfrum, a nurse from Hamburg, in the campsite kitchen. She has just completed the Kepler Trail, one of New Zealand's Great Walks, a set of government-maintained hiking trails in the country.

"The isolation and silence are magic," Wolfrum says. "When you're hiking, all alone, and it's getting dark, you imagine things. It's like a fairy tale sometimes. The nature makes you feel like a child again."

Up the road in Queenstown, nature is in full flight.

Queenstown advertises itself as "The Adventure Capital of the World," where you can bungy jump, heli-ski, jet-boat, or sky-dive. The confines of the modest town can no longer accommodate the throng of thrill-seekers. Soaring mountains still fringe the lake, but condos are creeping along the shore, a snake of traffic clogs the road into town, and Louis Vuitton has set up shop along with Global Culture, a clothes store.

If your idea of a holiday is a seething mass of cars and people, topped off by a cacophony of helicopters, Queenstown may be for you. Otherwise, it serves only as a warning of the perils of overdevelopment.

"Queenstown used to be nice, but it's a mess, now," Verduyn says, as we continue our trip down the Upper Clutha. "We don't want to get like that."

He points out a bunker-like private dwelling atop a bluff, and shakes his head.

"It was a disaster to put that building in there," he says. "People from all over the world are coming here seeking a wilderness, a sanctuary. The worst-case scenario is that we damage the environment, which brings people to New Zealand in the first place."

New Zealand at a Crossroads

Allthough if you're from some overcrowded hell-hole you'll be right at home.

http://www.slideshare.net/geographyalltheway/ib-geography-globalization…

by jh | 28th Dec 12, 5:30pm 1356669023

In Bhutan you pay a royalty to enjoy the country.

by J.C. | 2nd Jan 13, 10:53pm 1357120434

Reading the comments on this "opinion" makes me think that this site has really gone to the dogs. It seems that some of middle NZ still wearing socks and sandals mentally.

by J.C. | 2nd Jan 13, 10:53pm 1357120437

Reading the comments on this "opinion" makes me think that this site has really gone to the dogs. It seems that some of middle NZ still wearing socks and sandals mentally.

by iconoclast | 6th Jan 13, 11:49am 1357426172

jeepers creepers JC ... socks and sandals ? ... that has never ever been a descriptor of our No 8 character .. gumboots .. yes ... or nippers with bare feet with callouses on the soles 3 mm thick .. walk across scoria and along gravel roads .. no trouble .. but socks? where on this planet did you come from? certainly not from new zealand .. these blow-ins soon show themselves don't they ..

by xingmowang | 3rd Jan 13, 9:19am 1357157978

All I can say is that it would be a circus show of stupidity for NZ tourism industries if they do not understand why and how to educate and influence their single biggest source of potential customers in next 10 to 30 years.

by retireby50 | 9th Jan 13, 11:21am 1357683709

No wonder NZ retail is toast the Chinese don't spend very much as they can get most of it at home for half the price before its shipped here.