It’s Wednesday, the hotel conference wraps up in Ōtautahi, and today’s money stories are all about who pays for the parts of the country that do not pay for themselves. Here’s what’s moving.
The Government puts $500,000 of visitor levy money into telling visitors how to behave
Tourism and Hospitality Minister Louise Upston announced yesterday that $500,000 from the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy will go into expanding Tiaki, the industry’s care-for-New-Zealand programme that has run since 2018. The money covers behaviour signage, website work, training and joint work with councils, regional tourism organisations and industry partners. Tourism Industry Aotearoa and Tourism New Zealand lead it, alongside Regional Tourism New Zealand, New Zealand Māori Tourism and industry partners.
Tiaki is a good programme and behaviour is a real problem, particularly on the self-drive itineraries where the damage happens well away from anyone selling anything. None of that is in dispute. The number is.
The IVL went from $35 to $100 in October 2024. MBIE’s own figures put the take at $145.98 million in the year to 30 June 2025 and $102.45 million in just the first six months of 2025/26. Half a million dollars is roughly half a per cent of one half-year. It is being announced in the same week that the accommodation sector is in Christchurch arguing about whether to add a second levy on top of the first, and the strongest argument the bed-tax sceptics have is exactly this: there is already a levy, it is collecting at better than $200 million a year, and the visible spend from it lands in press releases this size. Whether that is a deployment problem or a communication problem, the industry is about to spend an election campaign being asked the question.
Source: Beehive · MBIE, what is the IVL · MBIE IVL annual performance report 2024/25
Stat of the day
$102.45 million
International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy revenue collected in the first six months of the 2025/26 financial year alone. (MBIE)
The Chathams get $15.5 million, and the cheapest line in it is the one visitors will notice
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and Associate Minister Mark Patterson announced $15.465 million from the Regional Infrastructure Fund for the Chatham Islands this morning. It splits into $9.4 million of wharf work, $5.6 million of fuel infrastructure and $465,000 for air interlining.
The wharf money does the heavy lifting: full replacement of Kaingaroa Wharf, repairs at Owenga and Flower Pot and to the Pitt Island barge ramp, better lighting at Waitangi and expanded livestock infrastructure. The fuel money relocates and upgrades storage and distribution at Waitangi to work with the government-backed supply vessel. Since 2015 the islands have had more than $150 million of government investment, including the new Inia William Tuuta Memorial Airport terminal.
The $465,000 is the smallest number and the one worth reading twice. It expands the interlining agreement between Air Chathams and Air New Zealand so a passenger can book both carriers on a single ticket. That is not infrastructure, it is distribution, and it is the difference between a destination an agent can package and a destination that requires a customer to make two separate bookings and carry the connection risk themselves. Plenty of remote New Zealand has the physical access sorted and loses the visitor at the booking screen. Half a million dollars of ticketing plumbing does more for a small operator out there than another wharf, and both were needed.
Source: Beehive
The NZ Super Fund is no longer a substantial holder in SkyCity
The New Zealand Superannuation Fund stopped being a substantial shareholder in SkyCity Entertainment Group on 6 August, with the disclosure filed on 10 August. It went from 56,290,729 shares, or 5.103 per cent, to 46,454,005 shares, or 4.211 per cent, through on-market transactions between 30 July and 6 August. AustralianSuper crossed below the same threshold in July after its own run of sales.
Fund managers rebalance and one exit is not a verdict. Two large institutions leaving the substantial-holder register inside a month, on a stock that has agreed to sell The Grand, is at least worth noticing.
The reason it matters beyond the share price is that SkyCity is not only a casino operator. It holds the New Zealand International Convention Centre, the largest single addition to this country’s business-events capacity in a generation, at exactly the moment Business Events Industry Aotearoa is campaigning for the sector to be treated as an economic asset rather than a tourism line item. The bidding cycle for international conferences runs years ahead. Whoever ends up holding that asset, and on what balance sheet, is a question with a long tail for anyone who sells beds, transfers or partner programmes in Auckland.
Source: Kalkine, substantial holder notice · TipRanks · AGB
Main works are under way on both sides of Cook Strait
Ferry Holdings confirmed in its programme update that commercial agreements for the port infrastructure were signed on 30 June and approved by shareholding Ministers in July, a preferred supplier for the ship-to-shore linkspans has a letter of intent, and main construction is now starting at both ports. Wellington’s work at Kaiwharawhara is led by CentrePort and reuses as much existing structure as it can. Picton is a new wharf, linkspan, vehicle access bridge and passenger walkway, delivered by Port Marlborough with Ferry Holdings, with HEB Construction on the marine and landside works. The rail-enabled ferries Kupe and Cook are due in service in 2029 with KiwiRail confirmed as operator.
Three summers sit between now and 2029, and the existing sailings have to carry all of them. That is the operational fact. The other one is that Picton is where a large share of self-drive and coach itineraries physically enter the South Island, and it is now a construction site for the next few years. Anyone writing 2027 and 2028 product across the strait should be asking Port Marlborough what the passenger route through the terminal looks like in each phase, rather than finding out on the day.
Source: Ferry Holdings · Port Marlborough · RNZ, ferry names
The chair of NZ Māori Tourism is at 23 on National’s list
National released its list on Saturday. Louise Upston, the Minister for Tourism and Hospitality, sits at seven and contests Taupō. Dale Stephens, chair of New Zealand Māori Tourism and a Te Rarawa executive, is at 23 and stands in Christchurch Central, one of the candidates the party singled out for governance and community experience.
Twenty-three is the interesting number. The ODT’s read of the polling has National around 31 per cent, which is roughly 39 or 40 seats, so a list place in the low twenties is inside the band that turns on the final count and on how many electorates come home. In other words the sector’s most senior Māori tourism governance figure has a real but not settled path into the House.
It matters because almost every open question in this industry has been parked on the far side of 7 November. The accommodation levy decision is explicitly deferred until after the election. The Conservation Amendment Bill, which gives the National Conservation Policy Statement its statutory basis, does not report back until 11 November. Voting opens on 26 October and Parliament dissolves on 1 October, which leaves a short window for anyone who wants a candidate on the record about tourism before the campaign swallows it.
Source: Otago Daily Times · RNZ · Elections NZ key dates
Taranaki gets $1 million of conservation money and finds $1.2 million to go with it
Conservation Minister Tama Potaka announced just over $1 million from the 2026 DOC Community Fund for two Taranaki projects yesterday. Te Kāhui o Taranaki takes $432,840 to map, monitor and restore critically endangered coastal turf ecosystems within the Taranaki Iwi rohe, alongside $123,600 of co-investment. East Taranaki Environment Trust takes $603,760 for the North-East Taranaki Kōkako Landscape Project, running predator control and monitoring across 46,000 hectares, with $1,085,000 of co-investment expected.
The co-investment line is the story. The Crown puts in a bit over $1 million and about $1.2 million of iwi, landowner, community and in-kind support arrives with it. That ratio is why contestable conservation funding keeps being defended in a tight fiscal year, and it is also why the projects that win are the ones with a settled local structure already standing.
For the visitor economy, kōkako across 46,000 hectares is slow infrastructure. Taranaki’s problem has never been that people will not come, it is that they come for the maunga, stay one night and leave. Birdsong in the north-east is not a product yet and will not be for years. It is the raw material for the second and third night, which is the only thing that changes the region’s numbers.
Source: Beehive · DOC Community Fund
Coming up
- Tomorrow New Zealand Cruise Association conference, Shed 10, Queens Wharf, Auckland
- 21-22 August Beervana, Wellington
- 24 August Group, tour escort and ADS FIT visa applications move to enhanced Immigration Online
- 25 August Tourism Holdings audited FY26 results
- 27 August West Coast Tourism Summit, Greymouth
- 28 August Air New Zealand FY26 annual results, and July Monthly Regional Tourism Estimates on the revised basis
- 31 August The new runway end safety area rule takes effect
- Mid-September Tourism New Zealand’s online AI collective forum for operators
- 13 September Auckland’s City Rail Link opens to passengers
- 1 October Parliament dissolves, with voting opening on 26 October
- 7 November General election
- 11 November The Environment Committee reports back on the Conservation Amendment Bill
- 2029 Kupe and Cook enter service on Cook Strait
That's today's briefing. The Shoulder Season is back every weekday morning.