Glacier hotels struggle with 10% occupancy

HOTEL occupancy at the glaciers has plummeted to just 10%, and a Fox Glacier hotel has been averaging just one room a night.

Scenic Circle, which owns five tourist hotels in South Westland, has been battered by the loss of international tourists.

As soon as the border controls were brought in last year, it mothballed the Glacier Country Hotel at Fox Glacier and the fivestar Te Waonui o Tane Forest Retreat at Franz Josef Glacier.

Te Waonui reopened this summer and New Year occupancy rose to about 50%, but then quickly dropped back to 10 or 15 rooms a night — about 10%.

‘‘Fox [Hotel] is averaging one room a night,’’ Scenic Circle chief executive Brendan Taylor said.

Scenic had a chain of 17 hotels and this would help its West Coast hotels survive, as some others were doing relatively well.

Closing hotels brought its own issues, as they still had overheads of about $50,000 a month, including insurance, rates and electricity, Mr Taylor said.

For a while last year some operators would have felt they were doing normal winter trade, but now summer had arrived they were realising just how dependent they were on overseas visitors.

Scenic sought help from the Government's Strategic Tourism

Assets Protection Programme last year.

However, just two glacier businesses were successful, Fox Glacier Guiding, and Franz Josef Glacier Guides and Glacier Hot Pools, at $500,000 each.

The Greymouth Star reported last week that two new motels had already closed their doors, and Mr Taylor said ‘‘quite a few’’ glacier businesses would not survive the winter.

The hotel chain was now looking at what businesses to hibernate over winter.

Even if a transtasman Australian market opened up, from talking to tourism wholesalers it was clear they would not see decent numbers until September or October.

‘‘That's a long way away. I can imagine . . . how much locals are hurting.’’

Scenic's Haast hotel was ‘‘doing all right’’, as people came over from Otago.

‘‘But they are not going any further.’’

Westland Mayor Bruce Smith had talked to glacier business owners and he said as many as 50% would struggle to survive winter.

Businesses had been forced to lay off staff, so when they did have a busy night they struggled to cope. Those staff who were there were at times working 14, 15 and 16hour days. — Greymouth Star