Opinion: Hawke's Bay poised to be one of NZ's best-placed regions to recover

Hawke's Bay Tourism CEO Hamish Saxton.

Earlier this month, Deloitte shared theoretical projections that showed a potential tourism growth for Hawke's Bay of $109 million.

It's an enticing prospect. But is it a reality? Well, maybe. If New Zealanders get moving, and can afford to get moving.

The economists who developed this figure worked with two key assumptions; the first that domestic tourism would be allowed during level 2, which it is, and the second being the funds that Kiwis have previously spent on overseas travel would instead be spent domestically.

Now, while we know this is unlikely to occur exactly as the economists predict, given we will be operating within a challenging economic environment, it does hold hope for our region's visitor economy.

In the year ending January 2020, Hawke's Bay's domestic spending was $498 million. During the same period, New Zealanders spent $6 billion on overseas travel, which Deloitte suggests could potentially be spent locally in the coming 12 months.

It suggests that Hawke's Bay's share could be as much as $283 million.

If this were to transpire, Deloitte infers that Hawke's Bay stands to be one of the region's best-placed to recover. Only Manawatu-Whanganui has a suggested potential increase in tourism spending that is larger than our own.

Much of this is due to our enduring strong domestic appeal that has meant we will be less impacted than other regions by the halt on international tourism. We are fortunate in this respect that we are not in the South Island, where every region is predicted to record a significant decrease in overall tourism expenditure.

Despite this promising outlook, there are still challenging roads ahead. The Government has announced a raft of initiatives to support businesses to either pivot towards the domestic market, manage their businesses until a potential transtasman reopening or even hibernate or explore other options.

Some of our tourism businesses may well need to consider these moves and how they will manage their product offering.

For our part, tomorrow we launch a domestic campaign to excite and entice, and to generate travel demand for our region.

We're focusing on Wellington. We know the Auckland consumer is about to be bombarded by inspiration for travel to numerous destinations within a half-day drive – so for us, a return on investment in such a busy market that is more than a half-day's drive wouldn't have made as much sense.

We're not pulling out of any markets – we're just focusing hard on one; one that we can dominate and one from where we're really accessible, whether by air or road.

There is no denying that the Covid-19 pandemic is a profound global event. There is no playbook for this and almost overnight our industry plummeted.

However, domestic tourism is the first light on the horizon and if we play it right – which we intend to do – Hawke's Bay, our industry, our people and our economy stand to benefit.