Tourism quality must not suffer

By CHRIS DANIELS, tourism writer

As the tourism boom train keeps rolling, a senior industry player says care is needed to make sure quality does not suffer.

Arrival statistics for July show a 19 per cent jump compared with 2003, with a 36 per cent leap in Australians crossing the Tasman, a near-doubling of Chinese visitors and a 15 per cent rebound in the Japanese market.

For the year to July, 2.27 million visitors arrived, up 11 per cent on the July 2003 year.

But, after being seasonally adjusted, the monthly stats show a fall of just under 1 per cent, after a 3 per cent rise in June.

This is all because of the big effect of the Sars virus on travel patterns last year.

There was a big fall in tourism from Asian countries, particularly Japan, in the early months of 2003, so there is no easy comparison with the previous year.

Analysis of the figures by Deutsche Bank says the year-on-year visitor growth rate had now slowed to 19.2 per cent (down from a peak of 29.2 per cent in May) as the "base effect" associated with the 2003 Sars slump.

Kiyomi Gunji, executive chairman of Southern Travelnet, one of the biggest inbound travel companies for Japanese tourists, said care should be taken when trying to increase tourist numbers rapidly.

It would help the economy more to have a slower rate of growth that focused on quality.

The peak season between November and March was becoming so busy in some places, particularly around Queenstown, that Southern Travelnet was telling Japanese school tours that May, June, September or October were better.