Tour New Zealand on a vintage DC3 in the week s best travel deals
11 Feb, 2021 10:58 PM
3 minutes to read
Douglas DC-3: Spend nine days on the vintage wings of the National Airways Corporation icon. Photo / Supplied
NZ Herald
Vintage wings on DC-3 safari
Experience a piece of New Zealand s aviation history as you tour the South Island, aboard a Douglas DC-3. It was the core of the domestic airline from 1947-1978. A nine-day tour is from $10,990pp, with twin-share accommodation in Christchurch, Banks Peninsula, Ashburton, Ōamaru, Te Anau, Doubtful Sound, Fiordland National Park, Milford Sound, Wānaka and Mt Cook National Park. The price covers breakfasts, a visit to the Little Blue Penguin colony near Ōamaru and cruises, including an overnight in Doubtful Sound. The tour begins in Christchurch on April 10.
Mike Yardley: Glacier Country Glories
Mike Yardley: Glacier Country Glories Tue, 2 Feb 2021, 4:34PM
As has been topical in the news of late, one of the less trafficked pockets of New Zealand over the summer holidays has been Glacier Country in South Westland. I road-tripped through the region in mid-January and the sleepy state of Franz Josef’s main street, in the sticky heights of summer, left me gob-smacked. It was virtually deserted. Typically, the summer crush of international tourists and group tours consumes the heart of Franz Josef into an insatiable frenzy of activity. The novelty of having this ravishing corner of New Zealand to ourselves is likely to last most of the year, so why not make plans to savour its seraphic majesty, before the tourist trickle reverts to being a gusher again? See it now, before the global hordes return.
Conservation Comment: Ups and downs in our great outdoors
1 Feb, 2021 03:02 PM
4 minutes to read
Wanganui Tramping Club members tackle an informal track in Egmont National Park. Numbers visiting national parks have fallen. Photo / Supplied.
Wanganui Midweek
OPINION
An interesting development from the overseas tourist-free summer has been the increased interest of Kiwis in our great outdoors. The premier tramps, the Great Walks, have taken off but for some reason numbers in national parks have fallen.
A case in point is Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park where popular spots experienced a significant downturn in numbers. The national park, which to the year ending January 31, 2020, recorded more than one million visitors, has struggled with the lack of international tourists, as Covid-19 continues to have a major impact on the tourism industry.
Regional tourist operators are grappling with another year of uncertainty with some questioning whether their businesses will survive.
Visitor numbers to Franz Josef are down by more than 95 percent, one business owner says (file image).
Photo: 123RF
With the vaccine rollout expected to take a year, and the prime minister saying the trans-Tasman bubble is looking more difficult, the return of international tourists appears a long way off.
The bad news just keeps coming for tourism operators up and down the country.
Glacier Valley Eco Tours owner Tash Goodwin said visitor numbers were down by more than 95 percent, making the update on the border all the more disappointing.
Margaret Gordon, a Melbourne-based Kiwi who works as a video producer for The Age, offers a snapshot of her two weeks in managed isolation at an Auckland hotel. The new Hotel Council Aotearoa, representing about half the country s 330-plus hotels, says many have barely survived summer. January should have been their busiest month with occupancies around 90 per cent, said strategic director James Doolan. Instead, with a few days of January remaining, most had only 40 to 60 per cent of their rooms occupied, and had been forced to slash about 20 per cent from their room tariffs to fill even those. That meant their overall room revenue was down about 50 per cent, but they still had to pay property-related costs like rents, rates, insurance, electricity and servicing debt.