A couple of weeks into the school holidays, it will be interesting how tourism operators are viewing the new world they are living in. Some will perhaps realise it’s not the Armageddon that many seemed to be thinking it would be. We heard a lot as we came out of lockdown of tourism operators closing and mothballing their offerings, because there were no tourists. This painted a very bleak picture of their future. However, let’s face facts. What Kiwi was rushing to go on holiday having just been through the shared national trauma of lockdown? The first reaction was to get back to “normal”, and in the first instance that’s interacting with friends and family, and getting back to work. To expect different behaviour was entirely naive. But then let’s flip it. While the tourism sector wrung its hands, where did they expect Kiwis to go these school holidays, and beyond that, for all holidays as we settle down to the new normal of not being able to travel overseas and start to scan the internet for interesting NZ vacations. We can’t go anywhere else. And holidays are good for us, whether domestic or international. There is some simple maths here. … Continue reading Comment – Ben Goodale: The death of tourism in NZ has been exaggerated