The Shoulder Season A daily read on New Zealand tourism

Monday 19 October 2026

Customs cuts the cruise arrival levy from $27.14 to $7.20, and diesel costs 55.8 percent more than a year ago

Cruise passengers get a $19.91 border saving from July 2027, operators' fuel bills keep climbing faster than room rates, SkyCity agrees to sell The Grand for $221 million, Twizel asks whether data centres and dark skies can share a basin, and NZ First promises the Southerner back.

By the Shoulder Season desk

A white and blue cruise ship at sea under a clear sky
Photo by Alessandro Zanini on Unsplash

It’s Monday, and most of what moved since Friday’s edition landed on Friday afternoon, after it had gone out. One cost is coming down, and it is the one cruise lines complained about loudest. Another is going up fast, and it hits nearly everyone who drives guests anywhere. Here’s what’s moving.

Customs cuts the cruise arrival levy by nearly three-quarters, from 1 July 2027

Customs Minister Casey Costello announced on Friday that arriving cruise passengers will pay a Border Processing Levy of $7.20 from 1 July 2027, down from $27.14. The departure levy goes up by three cents, so the net saving is $19.91 per passenger. Air travellers move the other way, by a small amount: departing air passengers pay less and arriving ones a little more, which adds 32 cents per passenger overall. The levy funds Customs’ risk assessment, processing and compliance work at the border, and is forecast to recover $124.3 million in 2026/27. The minister framed the change as the levy working as designed: where forecast costs support a lower rate, travellers get the benefit.

The size of the saving against the whole bill is worth working out. A ship carrying 3,000 passengers saves 3,000 x $19.91, or $59,730, in Customs levies each time it brings passengers into New Zealand. New Zealand Cruise Association chief executive Jacqui Lloyd told RNZ a ship that size can pay about $650,000 in government and port fees for around eight port calls. On her estimate the Customs cut is about 9 percent of that bill. Maritime New Zealand fees, the oil pollution levy, MPI’s biosecurity charges and port charges for berths, security and gangways make up the rest. Lloyd called the announcement “incredibly helpful going forward”, and noted that Maritime New Zealand and MPI are also holding their levies for the next few years.

The timing explains the 2027 start date. Cruise lines schedule itineraries years ahead, so a cost cut announced now affects deployment decisions for the 2027-28 season and later, not this summer’s. Lloyd also named a constraint New Zealand cannot fix on its own: berth slots in Sydney, where most trans-Tasman cruises start and finish, are hard to get, and shorter turnarounds there mean fewer New Zealand port calls. Port towns that lost calls this summer should read the levy cut as the start of a long recovery, not a quick one.

Stat of the day

$7.20

The Customs levy on each arriving cruise passenger from 1 July 2027, down from $27.14. With departures up three cents, the net saving is $19.91 a head. (New Zealand Customs Service, via the Minister of Customs)

Source: Minister of Customs via Scoop, RNZ

Diesel costs 55.8 percent more than a year ago, and room rates are up 2.2 percent

Stats NZ’s selected price indexes for September, released on Friday, show diesel up 7.8 percent on August and 55.8 percent on September 2025. Petrol rose 6.4 percent in the month and 24.3 percent over the year. The same release shows domestic air transport prices up 9.6 percent on August and 5.1 percent on a year ago, and international air transport up 2.3 percent in the month and 12.3 percent over the year. Domestic accommodation rose 4.2 percent in the month, but only 2.2 percent on September 2025.

For anyone running vehicles, the year-on-year gap is the important part. A diesel bill that has gone up by more than half while room rates have gone up by about a fiftieth means transport operators’ costs are rising much faster than what accommodation is able to charge. Most rates contracted for this summer were set well before diesel climbed this far. Pump prices kept rising after the September survey: on Friday a BP station in New Lynn was advertising 95 at $4.11 a litre, and Gaspy put the national average for diesel at $3.23.

Nobody quoted expects quick relief. The AA’s Terry Collins said he expects prices to stay high until at least Christmas. ANZ senior economist Miles Workman pointed to high freight costs and a weak New Zealand dollar, and said that even if the Middle East conflict resolved soon, lost oil production would take time to return. Operators who quote 2027-28 rates in the next few months should build in today’s fuel price, not hope for last year’s.

Source: Stats NZ, RNZ

SkyCity agrees to sell The Grand Hotel in Auckland for $221 million

SkyCity Entertainment Group told the NZX on Friday that it has signed a sale and purchase agreement to sell The Grand Hotel and its business assets for $221 million. The buyers are Eden Global Capital and Auckland City Collective, part of a privately owned property investment and development group with interests in Australia, Singapore and Southeast Asia. The deal needs Overseas Investment Office consent, and settlement is targeted for mid-December. SkyCity will keep managing and operating the hotel for the new owners until 30 June 2027.

The sale is part of SkyCity’s asset sale programme, and the money goes to repaying debt. Chief executive Jason Walbridge said the sale takes the programme’s proceeds above what SkyCity committed to shareholders. For Auckland’s hotel market, the sale is a vote of confidence from offshore capital in a premium city-centre property. The real test comes after June 2027, when the new owners have to decide who runs the hotel and under which brand.

Source: SkyCity via NZX

Twizel residents warn data centres could cost the Mackenzie its dark sky reserve status

At a Mackenzie District Council forum earlier this month, Twizel residents asked the council to act on the prospect of large data centres coming to the basin, RNZ reported at the weekend. Their concern is the combination of fast-track consenting and the Government’s replacement for the Resource Management Act. Twizel Community Board member Zoe White pointed to a data centre project near Invercargill whose consent was not publicly notified because the council judged its effects “less than minor”.

The tourism case was put by people who depend on the night sky. Astronomer and stargazing guide Daniel Gaussen told councillors that data centres run LED lighting around the clock, and that the resulting sky glow could cost the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve its gold-tier status. A geospatial analyst raised the effect of low-frequency noise from cooling and generators in a very quiet night-time environment. Two fishing guides warned about warm discharge water in the canals and lakes. An accommodation owner described the district’s appeal as what is not there: open space, quiet and dark.

RNZ’s report does not point to a specific proposal in the basin, so for now this is a warning rather than a fight. The point is that a reserve status held since 2012 can be lost through one consent decision made under rules designed to move fast. Operators who sell the dark sky have an interest in how the council responds.

Source: RNZ

NZ First promises to bring back the Southerner between Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill

NZ First announced at the weekend that it would bring back the Southerner passenger train between Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill, working with the operators of the existing Mainlander service on a commercial agreement for more frequent trains. It also promised a 12-month trial of commuter rail from Rolleston and Rangiora into central Christchurch. The Greens proposed restoring South Island passenger rail, including sleeper trains, in their transport plan earlier this month.

That gives two parties on opposite sides of the likely coalitions promising South Island passenger trains three weeks before the 7 November election. The release gives no cost, timetable or frequency for the Southerner, so this is a promise to negotiate, not a funded service. For the regions along the line, a daily train would open up a way of travelling south that has not existed since the original service ended in 2002. The detail to watch for is whether either party puts money against it.

Source: NZ First via Scoop, RNZ

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