Tourism chief remains optimistic on the future of our visitor industry

Jason Dawson samples Zealong Tea Estate's new Picnic in the Field. Photo / Nancy Caiger

Despite New Zealand being closed off from international visitors since February last year, Waikato Tourism chief executive Jason Dawson says it's "as great a time as any" to join the tourism sector.

"If anything, it's quite an exciting time in tourism," says Dawson, who remains in good spirits despite many events in the Waikato region being postponed due to the Covid-19 response.

"The tourism sector is still strong, and it's going to become a thriving sector once more."
Once borders open for international travel on April 30, Dawson expects to see many overseas travellers ticking a trip to New Zealand off their bucket list.

"New Zealand is a premium destination to visit and you're going to see people who are so excited to have saved up all this money through Covid, being able to come to that dream destination"

Dawson continued, saying "What you will see by joining our sector now is the excitement of change and of restarting and rebooting this country. Jobs in tourism, hospitality, and retail are needed to keep this place going."

It isn't just the aftermath of Covid-19 the tourism sector is planning for, "We're going to be tackling climate change head on," Dawson says.

"Our ultimate goal is to be a carbon-neutral or carbon-positive destination for any visitor that travels our country."

This eco way of thinking comes as the University of Waikato recently unveiled a world-first Bachelor of Climate Change, providing New Zealanders with the opportunity to make a career out of building a sustainable future.

Dawson says tourism employees can take pride in their part in the fight against climate change. "To be in tourism, you'll be able to actively say 'this is what I do in my job, in my business to tackle climate change in this country'."

While Dawson remains optimistic for the future, he does acknowledge there has been a strong economic impact from Covid-19-related lockdowns on many business in the tourism and hospitality sectors.

"In the tourism sector, we don't like the word pivot, unless it's a Friends episode," he says, "but we've seen some businesses that have decided to be a bit more nimble and do something different."

Dawson praises the likes of Waikato-owned brewery Good George Brewing, which released its own line of hand sanitisers during the first New Zealand lockdown last year, but says the ability to try something different shouldn't be spurred just from a crisis like Covid-19.

"In every business, no matter what business you end up doing, you should innovate. You always need to look at how you can do things better, which is what in Covid world, we have called the pivot," says Dawson.

"But really every business, every month, you should be sitting down with your team and your staff and looking at your customer feedback and go 'ouch, people are not really liking this bit of our business or the process we do'. So we should always be improving it and that is regular innovation that you should be running as a business."