A two-day conference in Queenstown next week will do more to help diversify the resort’s tourism-dependent economy than almost anything imaginable.
Web in Travel (WiT), Asia-Pacific’s leading travel tech events platform, lands in Queenstown for the first time this coming Monday and Tuesday.
The sold-out event’s hosted by Technology Queenstown (TQ) and is attracting about 300 delegates, about a third from overseas including Silicon Valley, Singapore, Japan and Australia.
"These events are held everywhere — Singapore, Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul, Tokyo, South Africa and then all over the US, all over Europe — and wherever they go, travel tech ecosystems spring up," TQ chair Roger Sharp says.
"We’ve set out a vision for Queenstown to be the Barcelona or the Montreal of the southern hemisphere, and the place to go where if you want to build travel or hospitality technology, you come here."
TQ is boldly aiming for tech to become 15 to 20% of Queenstown’s GDP, "and travel tech will be a big component of that".
"The reason is when you’ve got 3 million visitors coming here a year, and all these high-quality tourism companies, it’s far better to build a tech sector off the back of them than start with a clean sheet of paper."
Sharp describes travel tech as a very broad church.
"It’s the technology that runs flights, hotels, experiences, tours, the technology that helps you find a trip, book a trip.
"It helps you get customer service when things go wrong, it’s the AI that helps you pick the things you want to do, and it’s everything in-between.
"It does payments, it does analytics, so in really simple terms the technology should make the customer journey or experience better, and it should make operators more efficient and profitable.
"And travel, in many ways, is at the absolute forefront of what’s going on with AI — the latest technology is infused into just about everything you do in travel."
Sharp says WiT’s also an opportunity for local travel tech companies to present themselves to the world in a way they’ve never had before — "they’ll meet partners they can sell to, they’ll meet partners who could invest in them."
Local tech bosses who’ll take to the stage include Irik Anderson (Chomp), Richard McLeod (Loaded), Simona Turin (Planit), Erik Bradshaw (IBIS Technology), John Wikstrom (Magic Memories) and Mat Weir (First Table).
In terms of what TQ’s done since it was founded in ’24, "I think the first important thing we did was convince Otago University to dip its toes in the water here," Sharp says.
"This is a pretty close second."
And he’s pretty certain the event won’t be a oncer.
"We’re going to get through Tuesday night, have a sleep and then decide how often can we afford to do it and will it be yearly or every second year?"
