Working smarter ‘with and for’ our valued Chinese visitors
I’ve been phoned in the past few weeks by media seeking comment re the Prime Minister’s visit to China and the China Market Review report. Basically they were wanting a comment that would ‘stir the pot’ re why we are making it easier for Chinese visitors to come to New Zealand? When they realise that TEC was part of the China Market review and do support the recommendations from the report they are disappointed and switch to the next issue of how many Chinese will come and do we have anything to fear? If you can call greater wealth for the tourism industry and the economy something to fear, then yes we’d better look out.
Our industry over the past few years has been getting use to the idea of the Chinese visitor being a part of our future. We’ve attended workshops, conferences and received data re Chinese visitor number increases. However the average New Zealander has not the opportunity to really get to know who this Chinese visitor is or be aware of its potential. So in one way, you can say that all this ‘China talk’ and the volume of visitors expected in the next few years, could be unsettling for mainstream New Zealand.
Let’s take a step back to late 80’s and early 90’s when tourism was booming with our UK, European and North American visitors. The Japanese were our fast emerging visitor and the industry and country were a little fearful of what this would mean. Part of the fear was mitigated with hospitality training programmes and schools learning basic language skills and understanding the Japanese culture, protocols and spending habits. They were a respectful visitor appreciating our scenic splendour and who enjoyed kiwi hospitality. New tourism businesses thrived and it paved the way for many of our South East Asian and now Chinese visitors.
For the tourism industry, we are fast tracking with employing Mandarin speakers, and up-skilling ourselves with language, culture and visitor experience expectations. The expected growth of the current 200,000 visitors doubling to 400,000 in the next 5 years is likely achievable and we need to embrace our new North and South East Asian visitors with the respect and acknowledgement they deserve. We have visa free status with 57 other countries around the world and the new visa arrangements New Zealand has with China is not going to create an ‘underworld of iniquity’ but enable a better quality of visitor who will deliver long term economic benefit to the country.
Yes the face of our new visitors from Asia look different from what we are use to. However when we go on holiday we want to see and experience new things with a few home comforts, be it food or shopping. We want to spend all our holiday money and return home with some great stories and memories. In this, we are just the same and I welcome all our visitors to New Zealand for the 100% kiwi experience of a lifetime!