The Shoulder Season A daily read on New Zealand tourism

Tuesday 1 September 2026

2,900 hospitality businesses stopped trading in a year, at 3.3 times the national failure rate

Centrix put a number on what the domestic spend figures have been implying all winter, Auckland Council consented the $58 million rebuild of Waiwera's thermal springs, both major parties walked away from the fuel tax increases that were meant to fund the roads, and Westport is into its first week without an air link while Cabinet's decision stays unannounced.

By the Shoulder Season desk

Chairs and tables stacked up at an outdoor cafe
Photo by Jakub Żerdzicki on Unsplash

It’s Tuesday, and the month opens with the clearest measure yet of what the last two years have cost the front line of the visitor economy. Here’s what’s moving.

2,900 hospitality businesses stopped trading in a year, and the failure rate is 3.3 times the national average

Centrix’s latest credit indicator, reported this morning, counts 2,900 hospitality businesses that ceased trading altogether in the past twelve months, an increase of almost 40 percent. Of those, 422 went into liquidation, which is 1.3 percent of the entire sector. Centrix puts hospitality’s insolvency rate at 3.3 times that of the average New Zealand business.

The breakdown inside the sector is where the pattern sits. Restaurant liquidations rose 43 percent year on year, cafes 27 percent, and takeaway food services 143 percent. Across the whole economy 3,092 companies were liquidated in the twelve months, up 14 percent, with retail trade up 50 percent. Construction still contributes the largest raw number at 764, but on a far bigger base, which is exactly why the 3.3 times figure is the one to hold on to. This is not a general business-failure story with hospitality caught up in it. Hospitality is the outlier.

Centrix chief operating officer Monika Lacey framed the demand side plainly: “If things get tough, you don’t necessarily go out for dinner every week, you might go once a month so it’s a hard part of the economic cycle, when people start hunkering down.” The Restaurant Association’s general manager Nicola Waldren added the caution that matters for anyone reading this as a forecast, saying liquidation figures are a lagging indicator that reflect the cumulative effect of several difficult years rather than a complete picture of how every hospitality business is trading today.

Put it beside Friday’s regional tourism estimates, which had domestic spend down 1.3 percent nationally in July and down 14.4 percent in Queenstown, and the two datasets are describing the same thing from opposite ends. International spend is holding the national total up. Domestic spend is not, and hospitality is the part of the visitor economy most exposed to the domestic wallet. If you are building a 2027 itinerary around independent operators, the supplier list you validated last summer is worth re-checking rather than assuming.

Stat of the day

3.3x

Hospitality's insolvency rate against the average New Zealand business, on 422 liquidations in twelve months, or 1.3 percent of the sector. (Centrix credit indicator, via RNZ)

Source: RNZ · Centrix credit indicator

Auckland Council has granted resource consent to Waiwera Thermal Springs Property Limited for a $58 million redevelopment of the site 40 kilometres north of the city. The plan is 28 pools plus saunas, reflexology, gardens, walks and pavilions. Construction is expected to start in early 2027 for an opening around the middle of 2028.

The developer’s own assessment projects more than 310,000 visitors a year, around 90 direct and indirect jobs, and up to $300 million in gross regional product across the first seven years. Those are the applicant’s numbers rather than an independent estimate and should be read as such, but the visitor figure is the one worth noting. It would put Waiwera into the same volume conversation as a mid-sized regional attraction, on Auckland’s doorstep and on the road north.

Joint managing director Brandon Batagol called consent and detailed design “significant milestones”, while fellow joint managing director Craig Mitchell said the focus now moves to securing a final portion of private investment and completing detailed design before construction starts. That is the real gate. The springs operated in one form or another from the 1800s, closed in 2018 and were demolished in 2023, and this is not the first plan floated for the site since. Consent granted is further than any previous attempt got. Funding closed is what turns it into a product.

Source: 1News · NZ Herald

Both major parties have now walked away from the fuel tax increases that fund the roads

National has delayed the 12 cent a litre fuel excise increase scheduled for January 2027, replacing it with 5 cent increases every six months from January 2028 through to 2030, then annual rises after that. Labour has promised to halt fuel tax increases altogether for three years if it is elected. With the election on 7 November, neither major party is going into it proposing to raise the charge that pays for the state highway network during the next parliamentary term.

The sector bodies were unusually blunt. Infrastructure New Zealand chief executive Nick Leggett called it a “race to the bottom” that will cost more over the long term. Transporting New Zealand chief executive Dom Kalasih called the dithering farcical. The National Road Carriers Association’s James Smith called it a political decision showing a lack of political fortitude. The Automobile Association’s Terry Collins pointed out that the government’s own earlier removal of the previous annual increases created the hole now being papered over. Around $1.4 billion of Crown funding is going into the National Land Transport Fund to substitute for revenue that is no longer being collected.

This is a tourism story even though it never mentions tourism. Almost every touring itinerary in this country is a road product, and the parts of the network that carry visitors furthest from the main centres are funded out of renewals rather than new builds. Renewals are the first line squeezed when the fund is short. Nobody notices for a couple of years, and then the Coast Road, the Haast Pass and the run into Milford start costing more to drive and more to insure.

Source: RNZ

Westport is into its first week with no flights, and Cabinet’s decision has not been announced

Originair’s last scheduled Wellington to Westport service operated on Friday 28 August. Cabinet was expected to consider essential air route funding for the route yesterday, 31 August, and as of this morning no decision has been announced. The airline’s own customer notice still carries the pre-decision wording, saying that if support is forthcoming it will work with the government on arrangements to restart.

So the position this morning is that a district has lost its only direct air link to the capital, the decision that determines whether it comes back was taken yesterday, and nobody outside the room knows the answer. We will report the outcome when it is published rather than the speculation before it.

Worth remembering what sits underneath the individual route. Originair is also due to meet ministers this week about the criteria for regional development funding themselves, which is the more consequential conversation. An air link has to clear an investment test to receive public money. The road that carries the same passengers when the aircraft stops does not.

Source: Originair · Buller District Council · NZ Herald

The Otago regional deal’s second signing date came and went yesterday

The Otago Central Lakes regional deal was first due to be signed on 12 August. A second date of 31 August was diaried, and those meetings were cancelled after Queenstown Lakes, Central Otago and the Otago Regional Council paused negotiations over National ruling out an accommodation levy. Yesterday passed without a signature.

Two things have shifted since we covered the pause on Friday. ACT MPs Todd Stephenson and Cameron Luxton wrote to the mayors, telling them “you spent a year negotiating a regional deal in good faith” and that it is National’s position which has changed, and offered to meet. ACT has always opposed a bed levy, so this is about process rather than the tax. Separately, Winston Peters has pointed out that the deal was signed by the government rather than by the National Party, which on his reading leaves the levy option technically in place as government policy.

For operators in the Upper Clutha the practical read is unchanged and worth stating plainly. Nothing has been decided, no levy exists, and none can be introduced before the election. What has been decided is that a ten-year funding agreement for one of the most visitor-pressured districts in the country is now waiting on a coalition negotiation that will not happen until after 7 November.

Source: NZ Herald on ACT’s letter · NZ Herald on the paused signing

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That's today's briefing. The Shoulder Season is back every weekday morning.