In 2000 New Zealand hosted 30,000 visitors from China, and that had increased more than tenfold by the time the pandemic saw them shut out a year ago.
Hamiltonian Sherry Zhen has switched from guiding Chinese visitors to selling houses, closing her small tourism business for the foreseeable future. February 3 marks the first anniversary of New Zealand closing its borders to tourists from China, and the days of hosting groups of Chinese Amway staff or small private tours of a Cambridge Alpaca farm are long gone for Zhen, who got her real estate licence in July. Pre-pandemic, China was our second largest-tourism market after Australia and spending by 390,000 Chinese visitors in 2019 hit $1.7 billion.
RYAN ANDERSON/STUFF
Watch: Some of the best spots to view the America s Cup racing from the shore around Auckland.
Pre-Covid, Auckland city was littered with new building projects, entertainment precincts and tourism activations.
The global pandemic slammed the brakes on much of that but Auckland, like the rest of New Zealand, endured. And Heart of the City chief executive Viv Beck says the city has come out the other side with plenty on offer for visitors and locals alike.
BROOK SABIN/Stuff
There are plenty of new reasons for people to visit the CBD during the America s Cup, according to a local business head.
Home is where the heartland is
30 Dec, 2020 12:02 PM
8 minutes to read
Operating for thirty years, Franz Josef Glacier Guides allows visitors to access remote terrain that would normally only be accessible to experience mountaineers.
Photo / Ngāi Tahu Tourism
In four decades as a travel writer and several more years as a living, breathing, wandering Kiwi, I’ve seen just about every square inch of Aotearoa. But it’s only in the past few months I’ve encountered two special places for the first time. By Ewan McDonald
They re at either end of the country – the impossibly beautiful white-sand beaches of Karikari Peninsula and the impossibly beautiful deep-green waters, forests and mountains of Te Wahi Pounamou, our World Heritage Area in the Deep South.