Queenstown looks at business options
TOURISM, and the flowon demand for construction, will no longer be ‘‘the only game in town’’ underpinning the Queenstown Lakes district economy after the Covid19 pandemic, Mayor Jim Boult says.
The council had been aware for some time it needed to diversify its economy and encourage highervalue jobs which is why it created the
Economic
Development unit in 2017, he said.
The team had been working steadily towards that goal but the total tourism shutdown due to the
Covid19 virus had ‘‘accelerated that desire’’, he said.
Mr Boult believed central government recognised the Queenstown Lakes District’s tourismbased economy was probably the district worst affected by the border closures and lockdown.
He had been in discussion with ministers ‘‘about getting some decent sized capital projects under way in the district’’ and those, while at an early stage, were ‘‘encouraging’’.
The council was also forming a group to focus on the future of the district but it was too early to say who would be in that group and what industries they wanted to target.
Although there was ‘‘absolutely nothing happening in tourism’’ domestic tourism should start to recover after the lockdown, he said.
‘‘I stress it is certainly not going to be like it was. Anybody who thinks that once the lockdown is finished our numbers will come back in droves, is probably in fairyland.’’
Before the outbreak of the Covid19 virus, the Queenstown Lakes district was the fastest growing in the country.
Mr Boult said since the outbreak of the Covid19 virus in New Zealand, noone he was aware of had cancelled or deferred building projects but he expected the workload of the council planning department to ‘‘drop quite dramatically over the next year or so’’.
He could not predict whether there would be more holiday homes on the market, ‘‘but I do think we are going to see a lot of vacancy in the likes of Airbnb properties’’.
For the past 18 days, Mr Boult had been working 12 to 16 hours each day at his home office and had only been outside his gate for media interviews, the odd walk and to collect his Otago Daily Times newspaper in the morning.
He said a lot of that time had been helping migrant workers with ‘‘heartwrenching issues’’. They had nowhere else to go because they were falling outside the scope of normal government safety nets.
He said there were not many positives to come out of the lockdown, ‘‘but I guess if there is one, then it is noone is talking about airports at this present point in time.’’