Wednesday, 7 April 2021, 11:10 am
The
travel bubble with Australia will throw a lifeline to
tourism operators, who have first-hand experience that
thrifty domestic tourists are no real substitute for the
free spending visitors from offshore. According to the
Global Data research organisation, the annual spend of
domestic tourists in this country during 2019 was only about
$305, while the average expenditure of Australian visitors
here during 2019 was $4,642. (And Australians tended to
spend less than visitors from further afield!). All up,
travellers from Australia were worth an estimated $2 billion
to us during 2019, and Tourism NZ boss Rene De Mornay has
estimated that the opening of a travel bubble could deliver