Mountain Scene
July 31, 2021
By PHILIP CHANDLER
Destination Queenstown’s new boss says the challenge of rebuilding tourism attracted him to the role.
Paul Abbot, whose last job was running Papua New Guinea airline PNG Air, joined DQ this week after just getting out of Cairns, Australia, before the trans-Tasman bubble burst.
He’s most excited about the challenge of reinventing tourism in a resort hard hit by Covid border closures.
‘‘I guess, to be brutally honest and no disrespect to DQ, if nothing was changing it would not be an interesting job …
‘‘How often do you get the chance to almost reinvent an industry, or to be part of reinventing an industry and shaping it for your children, your grandchildren and the future generations, to give them something that’s better than we have at the moment?