Otago Business School taumata Craig Stobo said 110 delegates had gathered for the Otago Tourism Policy School at the Heritage Hotel in the resort, to debate and discuss policies and objectives relating to tourism.
New Tourism Minister Peeni Henare made his second visit to the resort this month to deliver the opening address.
At the beginning of March he visited Queenstown to launch the Better Work Action Plan, the first phase of the Tourism Industry Plan.
Yesterday he told delegates he believed the timing of that was "slightly out".
"We can’t wait.
"There are people in the industry pushing the boundaries, already keen to explore what it means to transform this industry.
"We can’t wait for further work to be done in many instances, but I want you to bear with us."
Mr Henare said the industry transformation plans needed to be built on the premise of collaboration across industries and communities, which would be the only way "we’re going to rise from the systemic challenges we all face".
"The hardest job for a politician is to learn when to shut up and get out of the way.
"We rely on a gathering like this, we rely on academia to show us trends to inform our decision-making for the future, we rely on people like yourselves, whether you run businesses or are leading communities, to be part of this conversation to make informed decisions."
When asked by Mr Stobo to outline what had come from three earlier reports — the 2019 Government Tourism Strategy, the 2020 Tourism Futures Taskforce and Simon Upton’s Parliamentary Commission for the Environment report on tourism in 2021 — Mr Henare paused for a long time before responding: "Next question."
He then said he would never say they were "a waste of time" because they had informed other work across the tourism sector, and were continuing to do so.
"But ... I acknowledge the tyranny of time ... that, actually, for many of the people in our sector, we’re a little bit tired of the planning, of the consultation that goes on and also in many instances the failure to do a consultation loop — where we come in, we pick amazing brains like the ones here in this room and then we walk away and we don’t see them again until the following year, and I don’t think that’s good enough."
On the continuing labour shortages felt acutely in the sector, Mr Henare said he heard the uproar "loud and clear".
Mr Stobo said pre-lockdown, there were 340,000 working holiday visa-holders in New Zealand; by mid-lockdown, that fell to 120,000.
Last year, Immigration Minister Michael Wood announced 35,000 such visas had been approved between March and December, yet only 17,000 arrived, Mr Stobo said.
"As you walk around the town — Queenstown is just a capsule of what’s going on in other towns — places aren’t open.
"We can’t get staff.
"Why can’t we open the borders, rapidly advance our visa processing to get people in to help our businesses who are screaming for labour?
"I don’t know if Government understands the size of the problem," he said.
Mr Henare said part of the problem was the "simple the strain of the processing" for Immigration New Zealand.
"I hear you loud and clear ... I’ve made a commitment to a number of people that I’ve already met to take this directly to the Minister [of] Immigration and make sure that those challenges are faced."
