As major destinations went into lockdown or imposed self-isolation on arriving passengers, airlines have cut their capacities, and small and medium-sized tourism businesses face unprecedented uncertainty.
However, despite fewer or no visitors, staff still need to be paid, and other costs continue.
Having a careful think about developing domestic tourism, long somewhat overlooked and underestimated, is an important exercise for the country’s long-term recovery, says Dr Julia Albrecht, a senior lecturer in the University of Otago tourism department.
"We know that domestic tourism is worth a lot of money."
Statistics New Zealand figures for the year ending last March showed that annual inbound international tourism spending amounted to $17.2 billion — the equivalent of $47 million every day.
By contrast, annual domestic tourism amounted to $23.7 billion — which was $65 million each day.
Given climate change challenges, domestic tourism also offered other advantages, including a smaller carbon footprint than the long-distance air travel often linked to international tourism.
As international tourism had fallen away, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern had earlier urged New Zealanders to explore their own backyard.
Given the continuing national lockdown, domestic tourism could also clearly not be promoted at this stage but firms could start planning and networking for when operations could be resumed.
Dr Albrecht welcomed renewed interest in domestic tourism, which could also benefit Dunedin and Otago and play a positive role in the country’s long-term future.
Dunedin was already promoted as the wildlife capital of New Zealand for international visitors, but there was scope to also promote the city’s natural attractions for domestic visitors.
Dr Albrecht lives on the Otago Peninsula, and said there were some excellent tourism businesses operating there.
"It would be great to see their business picking up again.
"In my view it’s absolutely yes to domestic tourism [in the long term]."
This would offer a lot of potential benefits in New Zealand’s eventual recovery, and, in the lag time before international tourism could resume, the domestic market was also for a while going to be the only option.
After the lockdown period was over, and once New Zealand had emerged from the Covid-19 threat, domestic tourism could to be promoted again, but any premature marketing that exposed visitors or tourism staff to virus risks could very easily backfire and would be ethically wrong.
"You wouldn’t want to put 52 people into a full coach," she said in relation to coronavirus physical distancing safety requirements.
An upsurge in domestic tourism could bring welcome economic relief to the New Zealand economy, perhaps for some months, before international markets fully recovered, and the airline capacity to serve them fully returned.
Tourism businesses seeking to continue to operate needed to adapt their product offerings, and visitors would have to be prepared to adapt their expectations of products and experiences, and how the pricing of those could change.
Businesses also needed to make some tough decisions if they were to survive.
There were options for tourism operators to maximise their chances of continuing to operate successfully and retaining staff, while minimising the risk of spreading the virus.
As recently recommended by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation, they needed to put people first.
Small and medium-sized tourism businesses could take several steps to respond realistically as well as ethically to the current situation, including offering the same tourism products, but with lower capacity.
It could be viable to offer bus or other tours at 40% or 50% capacity, to allow for sufficient space between travellers to limit the risk of community spread of coronavirus.
Private tours or experiences could be an option.
Operators might need to adapt the price to cover all costs, but be prepared to lower their margin.
Tourism businesses should also engage with intermediaries and wholesalers and try to renegotiate a temporary, lower commission rate, which could allow all parties to continue operations.
Businesses could also try to target new sectors, including any underserved domestic audience, and potentially private products could be offered to the luxury market.
Tourist operators should eventually increase cleanliness, disinfect everything and provide hand sanitiser and towels, to enable personal hygiene for guests, as a priority.
Social media could be used as part of overall communication approaches, and even more people than usual were using such media to keep updated in the current fast-paced news situation.
"Where the price had to be increased, customers need to know that this is improve their safety and to retain staff," she said.
Businesses would have to tread a fine line between keeping business going and acting ethically, and it was important to continue to put people first, she said.
