Tourism operators are bracing for more frequent storms after some experienced their most weather-disrupted summer on record.
A storm hit Aotearoa every eight days on average between March last year and the end of February.
There is a common saying in the tourism industry - make hay while the sun shines.
The money operators make during a busy summer helps to see them through the quieter months.
But a flurry of destructive storms put a dampener on an otherwise strong summer.
EcoZip Adventures managing director Gavin Oliver said it was unfortunate timing.
"The weather's had a profound effect this year. In Kaikōura, we lost nine operating days in January to wet weather. January is the strongest month of the year. So a third of January went west because of the weather," he said.
The weather also impacted his Waiheke Island zipline.
"We had two weeks of fairly consistent rain, which unfortunately depressed visitor numbers," he said.
"We're not thinking of weather so much as an operational challenge anymore. It's an economic impact. It's an economic challenge to be weathered."
He had already made changes to help make his businesses more resilient.
"At our Kaikōura location, generally we access our site through the Kahutara River. But when the river gets up, you don't want to put vehicles through it. So we've had to develop an off-road access, an alternative access road in.
"Now that's come at significant cost, but it's essential to the day-to-day operation of the business when you get those unexpected events."
Kāpiti Island Nature Tours managing director John Barrett said it was the most weather disrupted summer in the 30 years he had been in business.
"We're like squirrels, I guess. We go through a good part of the year when there's no revenue being generated in our business because we're a predominantly summer business.
"We go like the clappers during the summer to provide as good a product as we possibly can and that generally results in a margin at the end of the season," he said.
"And if we're lucky, we're close to budget."
They were unlucky this summer and ended up slightly under-budget, he said.
"Traditionally, going back 20 or 30 years, if we lost three or four or five days in a season ... we'd accept that.
"This season, for example, we were losing four and five days at a stretch. I think we did that maybe three times."
It had a significant impact on his staff, business and reputation.
He wanted to see more action from the industry to ensure it was well prepared and could adapt to more frequent, severe weather.
In Northland, Silver Wave Yacht Charters skipper and director Scott Farrand said even a few days of cancelling trips added up during summer.
They always needed to be vigilant and monitor forecasts throughout the day, moving boats to safer mooring waters when the conditions looked poor, he said.
"There should be some more forward planning regarding how we are protecting the Bay of Islands, the tourism industry as a whole, and operators that aren't in the tourism industry for that matter, that do work in those low-lying areas that are affected by swells when they come in, washing out roads and accesses."
He was disappointed a controversial breakwater to protect Pihia foreshore and marina from storms fell through a few years ago.
Destination Hauraki Coromandel general manager Kylie Hawker-Green said summer was looking promising and then damaging rain hit during the Auckland Anniversary long weekend.
"Traditionally, one of our busiest weekends in the whole season, roads were closed and unfortunately visitors just couldn't get to us," she said.
"Since then we've had about half a dozen other weather events and unfortunately that's meant it's been quite a depressed summer season for our domestic visitors."
The January storm flooded some tourism businesses, cut power and forced some campsites to be evacuated, but she said most were covered by insurance.
They were also hit with a wave of cancellations.
"People were nervous about having a booking for a month or six weeks' time because they weren't sure whether they could get there, if it was going to be open. And so many businesses have suffered loss of income or loss of forward income because of widespread cancellations as a result of those weather events," she said.
The organisation had been working with businesses to create their own resilience plans, advocate for tax relief for those struggling and help others to understand what their insurance policies covered.
But she said it had been hard to shake the misconception that the peninsula was closed for business.
"I know that it's always a great headline to talk about a state of emergency and a road being closed. It doesn't ever get picked up that the road is now open and it's perfectly fine and safe to travel," she said.
"So we've had to do a lot of work in increasing our comms and our messaging out to wider audiences to remind people that we're here, we're open, we're trading and everything is good as gold."
Tourism Industry Aotearoa chief executive Rebecca Ingram said many of its businesses reported days when they could not operate during summer due to the weather.
The industry worked with Aotearoa Circle to create climate change scenarios and create an adaptation roadmap to help the sector be resilient and reduce the impact of climate change a few years ago, Ingram said.
More recently, she said it had been helping business to prepare with webinars, advice for crisis plans and communications, and longer weather forecasts for the summer.
"It affects resourcing, what you might think your investment strategy needs to be, the sort of things that you might need to adapt to in (the) future. How you have to build up your reserves in case you've got more days where you can't operate. It's cancellation policies, all of this is a factor and we're doing our best to help our members navigate it."
This story was first published on rnz.co.nz |  |
