West Coast's Buller may fare better post-Covid than its southern neighbours

Friday, 8 May 2020

Westport was built on the mining industry.

Buller, a district that traditionally lagged behind Westland's booming tourism industry, may fare better than its southern neighbours post-Covid-19 lockdown.

The West Coast annual tourist spend fell by 8 per cent to $480 million in the year to March, according to figures from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. That was the highest fall of any region in the country. In March, the international and domestic tourist spend fell by 30 per cent, compared to the same month the previous year.

However, the West Coast had a north/south divide, with Buller in the north historically less reliant on tourism than further south in Westland.

Buller mayor and farmer Jamie Cleine said his district was well-placed to weather the coronavirus storm with its strong primary industry sector of mining, agriculture and fishing.

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Figures from Development West Coast show agriculture, forestry and fishing contributed 16.1 per cent and mining 7.3 per cent of the West Coast GDP.

However, those figures vary greatly between districts. In Buller, they make up 38.2 per cent, but further south in Westland only 22.4 per cent.

Tourism only makes up 6.9 per cent of Buller's GDP, compared to 32.3 per cent of Westland's economy.

Cleine said Buller had traditionally lagged behind Westland in attracting tourists but ironically that would help it recover as the tourism industry crashed from border closures. Buller's mining provided high paying jobs which would help keep the economy buoyant post-lockdown.

It was business as usual for him on his 130ha dairy and beef farm in Westport.

'The payout is holding out good as far as we can tell,' he said.

Stockton open cast mine's 300 miners would be back to work under level 3 exporting coking coal and 120 people employed by Talley's fish processing plant in the town had not stopped working under the lockdown, he said.

While those industries might not be able to absorb the job losses in the tourism and hospitality industries, they would create a background of stability.

Development West Coast chief executive Heath Milne said the strength of the region's primary industries would help provide some much-needed stability to the economy but there would still be significant job losses on the West Coast. The region has 16,263 workers, 22.5 per cent, or 3659 of whom were in tourism jobs.

'We estimate that under the Alert Level 4 lockdown around half of our workforce wasn’t able to operate in any capacity – either remotely or as essential workers. The Government’s wage subsidy definitely provided some breathing room for businesses, but this inability to operate is obviously hurting,' he said.

Tourism on the West Coast was highly reliant on international visitors, particularly in South Westland where some businesses cater to at least 80 per cent international visitors.

'A lot of these businesses will or have already made the call to close. It’s too hard to predict [how many] won’t be able to reopen. This is across the Coast but more pronounced further South.'