NZ tourism suffering from 'systemic issues', funding shortfall

Local authorities need certainty of funding for infrastructure. (Image: Depositphotos)

Tue, 07 Nov 2023

Tourism was worth more than $41 billion to the New Zealand economy before the pandemic response wiped almost all of the $17.7b worth of visitor spending off the books over the 2020/2021 season. That was a fifth of the country’s export earnings, compared to the dairy industry’s $15.6b and $7.6b for meat product exports. In economic terms, its direct and indirect contribution to gross domestic product (GDP) for the year to March 2020 was $27b, or about 9.1% of GDP, according to the Statistics NZ tourism satellite accoun...

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