The Shoulder Season A daily read on New Zealand tourism

Thursday 29 October 2026

The Reserve Bank holds at 2.75 percent on a 4-3 vote, and the dollar does the work instead

A surprise OCR hold sends the kiwi to about 56 US cents, Princess Cruises puts its bigger New Zealand season on paper, the Interislander replacement hits its $1.7 billion ceiling, Christchurch's new stadium runs hot, and Russell closes in on a pest-free first.

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 Thursday, and the rate rise everyone had written into yesterday’s briefing did not arrive. Here’s what’s moving.

The Reserve Bank holds the OCR at 2.75 percent, and the governor’s vote decides it

The Reserve Bank left the Official Cash Rate at 2.75 percent yesterday, against a unanimous forecast from economists of a 25 basis point rise, RNZ reported. The Monetary Policy Committee split four to three. Governor Anna Breman sided with the three external members to hold, while the three Reserve Bank officials on the committee voted to raise. The committee still expects annual inflation to reach 4.4 percent in the December quarter, mostly because of fuel futures, and said tighter policy is “likely to be required” but depends on the outlook. ANZ, ASB and Westpac now pencil in a rise in December, and RNZ reported financial markets put a 75 percent chance on it.

The detail that matters for visitor businesses is in the statement’s reasoning. The Bank said weak growth in household spending is stopping some firms passing on higher costs to rebuild margins, which is a fair description of a café or a regional motel this spring. Holding gives those businesses about six weeks of breathing room on floating debt, and Cotality’s Kelvin Davidson told RNZ fixed mortgage rates had largely priced a rise in already, so they are unlikely to jump either way.

The other effect landed within minutes. The New Zealand dollar fell 1.3 percent to about 56.1 US cents, RNZ reported. Retail NZ’s Carolyn Young said that makes imported stock dearer, and hospitality buys a good deal of what it serves and uses from overseas. For inbound tourism the same move runs the other way: a New Zealand holiday priced in US dollars, euros or yen is a little cheaper this morning than it was on Tuesday, just as the summer booking window opens.

Stat of the day

4-3

The Monetary Policy Committee's vote to hold the OCR, with the governor and three external members outvoting the Reserve Bank's three internal members. (RNZ)

Source: RNZ, RNZ

Princess Cruises puts its bigger New Zealand season on sale from 11 November

Princess Cruises has released its 2028/29 Australia and New Zealand programme: more than 90 departures across more than 70 itineraries of 2 to 46 nights, on Grand Princess, Emerald Princess and Royal Princess, with Auckland one of six departure ports, CruiseMapper reported. New Zealand itineraries take in Fiordland and ports on both islands, and the line’s 129-night world voyage from Australia calls at Auckland. Bookings open on 11 November, Australian time.

This is the detail behind a commitment made in August, when Princess said it would double its New Zealand itineraries from 2028/29. Cruise Passenger put the current figure at nine sailings a season and estimated the expansion would bring about 63,000 Princess passengers a season, which would make it the largest line in the market. Tourism Minister Louise Upston called it “a vote of confidence” at the time.

The timing is the point. Cruise Passenger reported the country has lost about 40 percent of its cruise visitors over two years, and the lower border levy for arriving cruise passengers takes effect in July 2027, a season before these ships arrive. Lines plan two and three years out, so 2028/29 is the first season in which any recovery the industry and the Government have been arguing for would show up in the numbers. The Princess programme is the first large piece of evidence that it might.

Source: CruiseMapper, Cruise Passenger

The Interislander replacement hit its $1.7 billion ceiling in June, and the extras came out

The programme to replace the Interislander ferries and their terminals reached the Government’s $1.747 billion cost envelope in June, forcing value for money, sustainability and safety enhancements out of scope, RNZ reported from documents released by Ferry Holdings. Costs set out at the July launch included $596 million for the two ferries, $403 million for Wellington infrastructure and $426 million for programme management and contingency. Picton infrastructure now totals $530 million after a further $37.5 million this month. Contributions of $110 million from Port Marlborough, $100 million from CentrePort and $10 million from NZTA keep Crown funding at $1.704 billion.

A June Gateway review rated the project amber: feasible, with significant issues that look resolvable. It also found no cost-benefit analysis or equivalent behind the chosen scope, and limited evidence linking the problem to the solution. Minister for Rail Winston Peters told RNZ the approach made it “easy to remove costs, but very hard to add them”.

For tourism the Cook Strait link is the spine of every self-drive and touring itinerary that crosses between the islands, and of the freight that stocks the South Island’s hospitality trade. The useful news is that the documents say the scope is final and remaining risks sit inside contingency. The less useful news is that the enhancements removed were the kind that tend to show up later as passenger experience.

Source: RNZ

Christchurch’s new stadium ran hot on Labour Day, with summer concerts still to come

St John treated six people for heat-related problems during Monday afternoon’s NPC final at Christchurch’s $683 million One New Zealand Stadium, RNZ reported, the third straight day of temperatures in the mid to high 20s. Venues Ōtautahi chief executive Caroline Harvie-Teare said ventilation inside the roofed venue was not where it needed to be for an early afternoon kick-off. The stadium has misting fans that can lower temperatures around the seating bowl by about five degrees, but they were not used because of concern about a slippery pitch.

Harvie-Teare said it was too early to say whether there was a design issue, and that the venue is working out whether what it experienced matches the design. For concerts, she said, turf protection goes down, which changes the calculation on misting. That matters because the stadium hosts Robbie Williams and the Foo Fighters in the coming months, and big summer concerts are exactly the events that fill Christchurch hotel rooms and bring visitors in from out of town. A covered venue sold partly on all-weather certainty needs to show it can handle the warm days as well as the wet ones.

Source: RNZ

Russell is closing in on being the first mainland town free of rats and possums

The Russell Landcare Trust has started pulling traps out of parts of the Russell peninsula because there is nothing left in them to catch, RNZ reported. After more than 20 years, the largely volunteer trust runs 7,500 traps and 10,500 bait stations over 3,000 hectares. Technical advisor Nik Minchin said 2,000 hectares are now possum-free and 1,000 hectares rat-free, and in the township itself, with a trap every 25 metres, catches are down to about one a month. The trust estimates about 2,500 kiwi now live on the peninsula, roughly three times the town’s permanent population.

General manager Ella van Gool said geography helps, with a defensible neck a few kilometres wide, but the decisive factor has been the community: 98 percent of landowners asked have agreed to pest control on their land. For the Bay of Islands this is a visitor story in the making. A historic town where kiwi outnumber residents is a rare thing to be able to say truthfully, and it is the kind of result that predator-free projects elsewhere, many with far less favourable geography, will be studying closely.

Source: RNZ

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