Each of the government’s various economic growth policy announcements asks something, in some way, of Queenstown. But it may not have the answer the government – and the rest of the country – wants, writes Victoria Crockford.

I love it when my choices are validated. 

So, I’m delighted that a pretty whimsical decision to return from overseas, drive from Hawke’s Bay to Otago in a Nissan Lucino, and take my post-grad international relations qualification to Queenstown has proved sound. 

Look at the big-picture news stories right now and you don’t have to read very far in to find a mention of Tāhuna or its environs either directly or by implication. 

It’s a place where gondolas are being fast-tracked, entire landscapes are being regenerated, golf courses now outnumber sheep, and – crucially – a buzzy, cosmopolitan mix of people is increasingly relied upon to be the panacea for the country’s economic ills. 

There seems to be a complete lack of any dot connection going on in relation to the various economic growth policy announcements in the past 10 days but all of them, in some way, ask something of Queenstown. And Queenstown may not have the answer the government – and the rest of the country – wants. 

Tourists – come on down, just don’t use the loos! 

Tourism currently sits at about 6.2% of national GDP and was worth, at its peak just before Covid, 38.6% of GDP for the Queenstown-Lakes District (it now sits closer to 28%).

In dollar terms, this is just over $1 billion. So, a decent chunk of change. But still an industry largely predicated on the constant churn of a lower-wage economy. 

Even so, Nicola Willis made it clear last week that “more tourists” was a key plank of her new economic growth portfolio. 

As someone who has had the privilege of being in discussions for over a decade about economic diversification, the minister’s words felt like that moment when my kids brought me a dessert they’d made with lemon-flavoured jelly at Christmas. On paper, sure. In practice, eugh. 

As our mayor, Glyn Lewers, pointed out in various media outlets last week, we’re a community that is already under significant infrastructure strain. It’s easy to imagine that, with all this space and all the cashed-up locals, we wouldn’t suffer from the same woes as Auckland or Wellington. But as a member of the council’s Climate and Biodiversity Reference Group and a lover of the local rivers and lakes, I can tell you that our infrastructure strain is increasingly mirrored in the health of our waterways and (lucrative) natural environment as well in our traffic and sewage ponds. 

Ultimately, it’s a matter of strategy versus tactics. Getting more and more people down here is not a strategy for economic growth for our region or the country. It’s a tactic for this, in the short term, and would definitely help out a lot of people I know with living in one of the most expensive places in the country. 

But in the long term, it only undermines local efforts to form a collaborative view on what sustainable tourism is and how it can be achieved. We want people to come here and have a wonderful experience and leave in awe. This means considering carefully what optimal means in terms of numbers of tourists, how we get them around, and what they pay for. And how often they’re going to need to evacuate their bowels. 

With no current indication of change to the distribution of the visitor levy to offer more funding to Queenstown, we are left holding the baby of economic growth with no way to feed or clothe her. 

Digital nomads – come on down, just not sure where you’ll live! 

As part of the same suite of announcements last week, Willis outlined the launch of a new digital nomad visa. 

This policy is suited very well to Queenstown’s reputation and energy, and overall, it will present a welcome opportunity to continue to pivot from tourism toward some diversification that has genuine productivity co-benefits. Just recently, a well-supported new initiative, Tech QT, appointed a high-flying CEO to lead the nascent organisation to become “a hub for innovation [that creates] high-value employment opportunities and fosters tech-based economic growth”. This type of visa may serve to attract the very capabilities that the Tech QT team is keen to bring down. 

Like all things, however, the devil is in the detail – and the detail that requires further investigation is the 90-day scope of the visa. A three-month stay to test the waters for Americans or East Asians earning offshore dollars could mean even more pressure on our already near-impossible rental dynamic. 

Housing is a well-documented concern here, with families, key workers and visitors competing with holiday rental platforms for the same limited stock. Short-term rental is a legitimate business that supports many households to afford a mortgage, but with the market functioning poorly as it is, throwing in more people staying on a short-term basis should be monitored closely lest we experience the same kind of outrage as Barcelona.

Even better, our 90-day nomads should be considered as a market segment that we need to specifically plan for. This hasn’t been our collective forte to date. Recent analysis from local economist Benje Patterson shows that the region currently builds enough houses in theory, with new building consents equalling 1,396, which totals 1,081 houses more than the population growth of 315 new households. In practice, we cannot keep up with houses of the type and affordability we need, nor have we got on top of the quarter of all houses that are vacant most of the time. 

Invest NZ rolls out the welcome mat… to Queenstown? 

The third leg of the economic stool announced last week was Invest NZ. One of the mandates of this new “one-stop shop for foreign investment” is to attract skilled professionals to “enhance domestic capabilities and global connections”.

How much the digital nomad visa and Invest NZ have been considered in tandem is unclear, but it is clear that they serve a similar purpose (at different levels of net worth) and that they both could impact Queenstown. 

It’s no secret that money loves Queenstown and if Invest NZ is running a campaign to attract serious foreign investors, it’s odds on they will have a presence here. 

Creating a long-term “welcome mat” for such people requires community buy-in to the vision. These are small towns and in some locales, there are well-known campaigns against the very people this policy is designed to attract. To ensure the mat is truly welcoming means asking ourselves: how might foreign investment and global connections contribute to realising the needs and aspirations of the local community? 

With the various policies being thrust upon us, this line of questioning doesn’t seem to be on the government’s radar, but it should be. It sounds as if the whole country is relying on Queenstown to get it right.