Business ponders postponement of Chinese tourism 'do'

Tuesday, 12 February 2019

The China New Zealand Year of Tourism is supposed to work both ways, attracting Kiwis to visit Chinese attractions, such as the Great Wall, but the official launch event is under a cloud.

A simple scheduling reshuffle or an official Chinese Government snub?

The business community has mixed feelings about the postponement of a much vaunted launch of the Chinese New Zealand Year of Tourism that was supposed to take place next week.

Although it was never regarded as likely to bring hordes more Chinese visitors, there is concern that 'rescheduling' of the launch could be a political reaction to the Government's rejection of Chinese telco Huawei.

Executive director of the New Zealand China Council Stephen Jacobi said it was a potentially worrying sign about the tone of the relationship between the two countries.

Executive director of the New Zealand China Council Stephen Jacob says timing of a tourism event launch could have far reaching implications.

* Tourism coming off the boil as spectacular growth slows

* Cashing in on the China-New Zealand Year of Tourism

* $2.6m Terracotta warrior exhibition headed for Te Papa, Wellington**

'After all, this year of tourism was something that was announced during the visit of premier Li Keqiang, so it was a fairly high level thing.

'It's much more of a concern than turning back the Air New Zealand plane the other day which was obviously an administrative snafu, this is a little more complicated than that, and clearly we want to get it reinstated and underway as soon as we can.

'If it's rescheduled for the next couple of months, it's probably a storm in a tea cup, but if it carries on then we have a bigger problem.'

Jacobi suggested 'we need to bite our tongue' and wait to see what transpired following Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment (MBIE) assurances that the postponement was just due to 'changes of schedule on the Chinese side'.

But inbound tourism - with more than 400,000 Chinese expected to visit this year - and efforts to upgrade the Free Trade Agreement made it important to ensure the relationship remained strong.

'It's not so much that they will do bad things to us, but they might not do the good things we want,' Jacobi said.

Tourism Export Council chief executive Judy Chen said a lot of inbound travel agents were promoting the year of tourism and they certainly hoped it would go ahead as planned.

She said the Chinese Government had the ability to influence outbound travel behaviour and the business environment in general, and operators would not like to see New Zealand affected in the way Canada had been following the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou at the request of the US.

Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Chris Roberts downplayed the launch delay which MBIE notified him of earlier in the month and said there was still a calendar of events set to go for the year. .

'The postponed ceremony at Te Papa was more about fulfilling protocol requirements.

'China's primary motivation with all these year of tourism events they have around the world is to encourage more visitation TO China; it is not going to have a significant impact on visitors coming here,' said Roberts.

The House of Travel director Brent Thomas said outbound travel to China from New Zealand had increased 40 per cent in recent years, helped to a large degree by the increase in carriers flying there.

As well as a resulting rise in package deals, there was anecdotal evidence that business travellers going to China were opting to return with their families for holidays.