Government figures show New Zealand's tourism sector employed 168,000 as at March 31, 2015, or 6.9 per cent of the nation's working population. That was up from 159,600, or 6.8 per cent, a year earlier.
Bennett said most tourism operators would prefer to hire Kiwis but the seasonal effects meant it was difficult to offer full-time hours. She was interested in a project in Queenstown where an operator was looking to send staff to different places in an effort to offer them at least 30 hours a week.
Work was also being done to look at high-value career pathways in secondary and tertiary education.
Tourism New Zealand chief executive Kevin Bowler said efforts to attract professionals and families from India had been increasingly successful, and would go some way to boosting numbers in the shoulder of the tourism season, with those visitors keen to travel during autumn and spring.
When asked about the shortage of worker accommodation in Queenstown, Bennett, who is also Social Housing Minister, said that wasn't an area "the Government would choose to invest money in right now".
Workers typically wanted to live in central Queenstown, but Bennett said there were options for new housing developments on the way to Cromwell.
- BusinessDesk