This year our visual theme for each of the Industry Action Plans has been developed with a Te Ao Māori context in mind.
In Te Ao Māori, the Kea symbolizes manaakitanga | hospitality and whanaungatanga | relationship-building through its curious and intelligent nature. It embodies the spirit of guiding and caring for visitors, encouraging exploration while respecting the land. For tourism, the kea represents the journey of discovery, where adventure is paired with a deep connection to the environment and its stories.
The future of Tourism & Travel is evolving as customers demand more meaningful, connected experiences. Te Ao Māori is the future of tourism and travel as customers seek and value more meaningful connected experiences including histories, stories, world view, and cultural experiences forming an integral part of New Zealand’s identity.
The industry will adopt new and emerging technology, and embrace innovation to help their businesses grow and enhance the visitor experience.
The future workforce is one where individuals are ‘well equipped’, and have access to ongoing opportunities to upskill within their roles and develop in their careers2. This will ensure that the industry provides world class visitor experience and delivers benefits for all New Zealanders.
At its core, the Tourism & Travel industry connects people and provides them with a wealth of experiences all over the motu, ranging from leisure and recreational activities, entertainment, hospitality, retail, accommodation, and travel. Whether you are thrill-seeking in Queenstown, out for dinner in Christchurch, exploring the far North or enjoying recreation or shopping for clothing while travelling through Tauranga, the Tourism & Travel industry is there to support you.
Tourism is critical to New Zealand as one of our largest export industries and an important economic growth driver, generating $37.7 billion from visitor spending as of March 2023, an increase of 39.6% ($10.7 billion), and generating a direct contribution to GDP of $13.3 billion, or 3.7% of GDP, an increase of 30.9% ($3.1 billion)3. New Zealand tourism is now set to grow and expand beyond pre-pandemic levels, driving an increase in industry-wide revenue and profitability over the next five years4 with an anticipated surge of 35.3% in 2023-24, as international tourists return to New Zealand.
There are approximately 149,000 workers in the Tourism & Travel industry, excluding casual and part-time workers, as of 2023. It is estimated that this number will continue to grow by 2% per year in the near future, reaching 157,000 in 2025, and employing more than 166,000 people by 2028.
A high proportion of these workers are rangatahi (aged 15-24). It is expected that rangatahi will continue to make up a large proportion of the tourism workforce. Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA) has reported that two in five organisations are engaging with or planning to engage with secondary schools or tertiary providers to recruit staff. To support this, TIA have been holding a series of career expos, information sessions, internship programmes and gateway initiatives to promote career pathways into and within the Tourism & Travel industry.
There are a range of opportunities for rangatahi and the wider workforce to explore, especially for those interested in:
Although Tourism & Travel has rebounded strongly since the Covid-19 pandemic, businesses continue to struggle to fill the staff vacuum left, let alone meet the growth in demand. Shortages are particularly acute in towns and regions with large tourist numbers and relatively small labour markets such as Queenstown.
Whilst a number of organisations provide multiple work-based training options and internships, there are also eight formal qualifications within the Tourism & Travel industry which support the industry to meet workforce need.
Industry are increasingly demanding short, sharp, stackable micro-credentials which could support businesses to provide more accessible training and for learners to upskill and develop more transferrable skills to help them progress within their careers. This includes potential micro-credentials for authentic storytelling.
In addition, there is a trend towards more hands-on learning over theoretical education with industry promoting apprenticeship schemes and government-supported internships. Industry emphasises the importance of practical, relevant and accessible training, as well as niche industry awareness and core skills such as critical thinking, customer service skills and communication.
Industry has highlighted other key challenges for industry training, including language barriers, funding availability, regional accessibility of training.
Explore Tourism & Travel industry workforce demographic, business, and economy statistics, and education and training data.
The increasing impact of cost of living has meant less household disposable income for leisure activities. As a result, many businesses are having difficulty attracting customers and competing for customer disposable income.
Recovery in international travel and the rising cost of living means tourism operators are needing to balance domestic and international offerings.
Businesses are therefore seeing a decrease in customers, less productivity, and increased cost, and some are facing closures.
More than a third of visitors travel to New Zealand in the summer months (40 percent of the total spend), but it can result in insecure seasonal jobs, overcrowding and congestion.
Tourism operators focussing on seasonal attractions such as winter leisure activities are increasingly seeking ways to appeal to Australian visitors to travel to and enjoy New Zealand activities compared to other international destinations.
Outside of peak season, hotel rooms are left empty, business return to skeleton staff and some hibernate, waiting for visitors to return over the warmer months.
Tourism New Zealand has an ambitious new strategy which will support this and grow tourism by $5 billion over the next four years by attracting more visitors outside of summer. The strategy highlights the importance of building New Zealand’s brand, enhancing the visitor experience and growing off-peak arrivals.
Industry has reported challenges recruiting from secondary schools and tertiary institutions and have noted the lack of life skills and experience, limited time for training, suitability of working hours, license and qualification requirements.
Organisations have also reported a shortage of quality applicants, followed by unrealistic expectations regarding accommodation for job seekers, discrepancy between available and work hours.
In addition, increased wages are impacting the ability of businesses to alleviate recruitment issues for their organisation.
Other recruitment challenges include time and funding constraints, immigration and visa restrictions, a limited talent pool in rural areas and inadequate wages in relation to living costs.
The specific roles most in demand are housekeeping attendants, customer service/frontline/reception workers and tour guides.
There are a number of roles that are suitable for short-term workers in destination tourism locations such as Queenstown, where domestic worker relocation is not viable but short term migrant worker placement may be suitable, however, many short term migrant workers do not have visa’s and need support.
The high cost of living and seasonal nature of tourism limits tourism destination towns’ ability to attract domestic workers. Fill labour shortage – short term need + short term solution. Many would like to hire domestic workers; however, recruiting domestically is not sufficient to meet the current labour shortage and increasing demand for tourism and travel offerings.
Ensuring the sustainability of Māori tourism involv
Building and maintaining strong relationships within Te Ao Māori, Māori tourism networks and the wider community is crucial to the industry. This includes nurturing connections among Māori tourism operators, educators, and learners. Te Whakarae project aims to bolster relationships between Māori industry, collaboration with wider industry, and enriching communities with iwi, hapū and wider communities. This will support Māori Tourism and New Zealand Tourism collectively.
