The Shoulder Season A daily read on New Zealand tourism

Thursday 5 November 2026

RealNZ takes the Supreme Award for the second time in three years, and a derailed coal wagon stops the TranzAlpine at Arthur's Pass until 20 November

Last night's Tourism Awards put a conservation-led Queenstown operator back on top and spread the category wins from Auckland to Okarito, the Midland Line is shut on the West Coast side of the Alps, unemployment reaches 5.7 percent just as the industry says it is hiring, and Havelock's silted-up marina gets its dig.

By the Shoulder Season desk

Sunlit rain falling across a green valley at Arthur's Pass
Photo by Tyler Lastovich on Unsplash

It’s Thursday, the morning after the industry’s big night in Christchurch, with the election two days away. Four items, kept deep.

RealNZ wins the Supreme Tourism Award again, and the category wins go from Auckland Sea Kayaks to Okarito

RealNZ was named the Air New Zealand Supreme Tourism Winner at the New Zealand Tourism Awards at Te Pae Christchurch last night, its second Supreme win after 2024. The Queenstown-based company runs cruises and excursions across Queenstown, Milford Sound Piopiotahi, Te Anau, Fiordland and Stewart Island Rakiura, and the Cardrona and Treble Cone skifields. It also took the Large Business excellence award. The judges called it a conservation organisation fuelled by tourism and pointed to its regeneration work, its recruitment and training programme, and rising customer satisfaction. Chief executive Dave Beeche called the win “a deep honour”.

The rest of the list is spread well beyond one region or one size of business:

The pattern worth noticing is what the judges rewarded at the top. A record 177 entries were cut to 48 finalists, and the Supreme went to a business described first by its conservation purpose and its training programme rather than its visitor numbers. Auckland Sea Kayaks taking both the micro business award and the emerging leader award is the other story of the night: a very small operator with depth in its people. In the same week TIA’s survey found most new tourism jobs are at entry level, an industry that rewards training at its top table is sending a clear signal about where it thinks the next few years are won.

Source: Tourism Industry Aotearoa release via Scoop

Stat of the day

174,000

New Zealanders unemployed in the September quarter, 14,000 more than a year earlier, as the unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent. (Stats NZ, RNZ)

A derailed coal wagon has closed the Midland Line, and the TranzAlpine stops at Arthur’s Pass until 20 November

The last wagon of KiwiRail coal train 834 derailed as it approached the Ōtira Tunnel at about 10pm on Tuesday, and the train came to a stop inside the tunnel. Nobody was hurt, but RNZ reported extensive damage to the train and the track, and the Transport Accident Investigation Commission has opened an inquiry. The Midland Line, which runs from Rolleston to Greymouth, is closed through the damaged section.

For visitors the effect is on one of the country’s best-known rail journeys. Great Journeys New Zealand now says that until 20 November the TranzAlpine runs only between Christchurch and Arthur’s Pass, with a road connection on to Greymouth while the track is repaired, and booked passengers are being offered alternatives. KiwiRail said earlier that affected passengers would be contacted and offered rebooking or refunds.

That is two weeks without a through train on the eve of the summer peak. The eastern half of the journey, across the Canterbury Plains and up the Waimakariri to the pass, still runs, so day trips from Christchurch hold up best. The bigger exposure is on the West Coast, where Greymouth and the itineraries built around arriving by train lose their most distinctive way in, and on anything booked as a one-way rail leg that now needs a different final hour. TAIC typically spends two to three days on site, so the cause will not be known for some time.

Source: TAIC, RNZ, Great Journeys New Zealand

Unemployment rises to 5.7 percent, and the slack sits mostly in the North Island

Stats NZ’s September quarter figures, released yesterday, put the unemployment rate at 5.7 percent, up from 5.6 percent and the highest in nearly 11 years, RNZ reported. Underutilisation held at 13.8 percent, a 12-year high. Casual roles rose nearly 20 percent over the year and fixed-term jobs 19 percent, with a shift towards part-time work in the quarter. Wage growth on the broad measure stayed near a five-year low at 2.1 percent, and the share of young people not in employment, education or training rose to 14.1 percent.

Set against yesterday’s TIA survey, in which 51 percent of tourism businesses said they are recruiting and most new roles are entry level, this looks like an easier summer to staff than the last few. There are more people looking, more of them are young, and casual and fixed-term work is growing, which is the shape of seasonal tourism hiring. The catch is geography. RNZ reports the highest regional rates in Northland at 8.3 percent and in Auckland, Waikato and Manawatū-Whanganui above 6 percent, while most South Island regions sit below 5 percent. The labour is plentiful where summer demand is thinnest, so South Island operators in Queenstown, Fiordland and the West Coast may still find the market tight, with housing for seasonal staff as much of a constraint as pay.

Source: Stats NZ, RNZ

Havelock’s silted-up channel gets a $9.9m dig, starting on Monday

Port Marlborough has started its Havelock Channel Reinstatement and Marina Redevelopment Project, backed by a $9.9 million loan from the Regional Infrastructure Fund. The 2021 and 2022 storms that damaged Kenepuru Road also filled the channel: the port says it used to need about 1,500 cubic metres of dredging every five years and now needs about 20,000 over the same period. The work resets the channel along its full length, replaces the timber D, E and F jetties with floating concrete pontoons, and adds a new 20-metre jetty for visiting vessels. Isaacs Construction moves on site on Monday 9 November, with completion expected by the end of 2027.

Havelock is mostly a working port. The port says about 80 percent of Marlborough’s aquaculture harvest lands there, and the marina is the link for around 950 residents and 130 businesses in the Pelorus and Kenepuru Sounds. But it is also the gateway to Pelorus Sound for the region’s mussel cruises, water taxis and charter boats, and those operators will be working around a construction site through two summers. The port has promised notice of disruptive work, with a community drop-in on 25 November. The financing is the other point worth noting: like the $3.4m Southerner loan reported on Monday, this is a Regional Infrastructure Fund loan to be repaid, not a grant, which is now the standard shape of regional tourism-adjacent infrastructure money.

Source: Port Marlborough release via Scoop

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