SH6 north of Hāwea has been down to convoys on weekdays for almost three weeks, and a Haast bar puts its losses at $30,000
The Haast Pass route is still limited to three convoys each way on weekdays with no fixed reopening date, Auckland's international traffic stood still in August while Queenstown's grew 18 percent, Stats NZ's card data confirms hospitality had a worse month than everyone else, and AJ Hackett wants to sell its Sky Tower ride to towers overseas.
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Tuesday 15 September 2026
July's overseas arrivals beat July 2019 for the first time, by 1,053 people
A month finally passed its pre-COVID level while the year is still 200,000 short, Auckland's first rail weekday grew fastest outside the rush hour, Marriott's first flagship-brand hotel in New Zealand will be a Rotorua conversion, and a Northland Great Ride gets $1 million of levy money with twice that from ratepayers.
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Monday 14 September 2026
Auckland's new underground stations handled nearly 40,000 people on day one, after a cable fire before 6am
The City Rail Link opened on Sunday with a fire, a fast recovery and big crowds, and faces its first weekday this morning; DOC has signed up the Backcountry Trust to look at new ways of paying for huts; Kaikōura gets $835,000 of visitor levy money for cruise arrivals; and NZ First wants to take automatic work rights off international students.
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Friday 11 September 2026
New marine mammal permits at Banks Peninsula are shut for another decade, across a much bigger patch of water
DOC extended the Akaroa permit moratorium to the whole peninsula and ran it out to 2036, the June year closed 215,000 arrivals short of the target the Government set for 2026, the Regional Infrastructure Fund put $8 million into running the Waitangi Treaty Grounds, and Conservation Week 2027 has been called seven months early.
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Thursday 10 September 2026
A government review found 24 things wrong with hospitality regulation, and put a date on none of them
The Ministry for Regulation's hospitality review landed with 24 recommendations and no timetable, Tourism New Zealand put $820,000 behind a campaign to win 5,000 more people coming to see their relatives, Auckland's rail network changes on Sunday but opens on a reduced service, Snow Machine starts in Queenstown today, and Canterbury businesses say they are hiring again.
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Wednesday 9 September 2026
National would hand councils $385 million of the visitor levy, and Queenstown says that leaves it $23 million a year short
The bed tax is dead and the International Visitor Levy is being carved three ways instead, the mayors who wanted an accommodation levy have already done the subtraction, Michelin's first stars are showing up in NZ restaurant payrolls, and Mount Cheeseman has called its season early.
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Tuesday 8 September 2026
Six campaigns won $5 million to fill the quiet months, in the same week hospitality spending stopped growing
The third Regional Tourism Boost round went to six food and wine campaigns aimed at spring and early summer, ANZ's card data showed hospitality's annual growth falling from 7.3 percent to 0.6 percent, Auckland Airport will put security screening in front of passport control from late 2027, and the Tongariro Northern Circuit gets to be a circuit again in mid-December.
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