Industry News
The Australian government stuck a knife into the heart of New Zealand ski areas yesterday by announcing a lockdown which is restricting movement in New South Wales (NSW) for 12 days after the Sydney community COVID-19 outbreak. New Zealand ski areas had hoped for a travel corridor between the two countries, which both managed to suppress incident numbers and pushed them down to zero. Now, travel from NSW to other states or even to New Zealand has been made impossible.
Ski fields in New Zealand have been flooded with cancellations as quarantine-free travel remains off the cards during most of the New South Wales school winter break, traditionally one of the busiest periods for ski areas. Australia is the largest foreign in-bound market to New Zealand ski resorts and Australian travelers are known to spend more than domestic travelers.
Many ski areas were relying on the holidays and the introduction of the trans-Tasman bubble to kickstart their seasons.
“We’re gutted to see the pause in quarantine free travel between New Zealand and New South Wales. We had some very strong bookings from New South Wales for next week, the week starting 28th of June. So it’s the first week of their school holidays.
“And then the following week starting the 5th of July, our bookings were near capacity. So we’re seeing mass cancellations coming in now.”
– NZ Ski chief executive Paul Anderson
Hopefully, the cancellations turn into rebookings as restrictions are lifted.
