PM ponders extra public holidays

The Government is giving ‘‘active consideration’’ to additional holidays to get Kiwis out spending in order to boost tourism operations.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said during a visit to Rotorua’s Te Puia yesterday that was one idea being considered to provide an economic boost to the embattled tourism sector.

Asked whether, after Easter and Anzac Day falling within the earlier lockdown periods, additional holiday time was being considered, Ardern said the Government was thinking of ideas ‘‘to encourage New Zealanders to come and see their own backyards’’.

‘‘Those are things we’re giving active consideration to,’’ she said.

Her remarks were welcomed by Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief Chris Roberts.

‘‘There’s agreement we need to support domestic tourism, it’s all we have for the time being and we need to be as imaginative as possible – more than a glitzy marketing campaign.’’

Roberts said domestic tourism had two main drivers: big events and time off. ‘‘And for now we can’t have events. We’ve plenty of evidence that long weekends lead to significant boosts in spending.’’

He said a long gap existed between Queen’s Birthday Weekend and Labour Day, and that some type of long weekend could be offered as a reward to the nation for the successes in combating the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, he acknowledged that additional time off work could attract pushback from other sectors also trying to recover from the lockdown.

‘‘We would expect the Government to balance these factors up,’’ he said.

‘‘It’s not cut and dried. We obviously know it would be appealing to the tourism industry . . . It’s good the Government is open to the idea.’’

Ardern said work was under way on the trans-Tasman ‘‘bubble’’, but could give no timelines.