Air New Zealand chief executive, Nikhil Ravishankar was one of the early speakers at the event and was questioned in a ‘fireside chat’ format about recent Qantas moves in the market.
‘All but one of our planes are back, I have been waiting six years to say something like that. It has been like we have had one arm tied behind our back,’ Ravishankar says. ‘Now we need to be more clever about competing. But we love being the underdog and we have a few tricks up our sleeve.’
The discussion also touched on the shift towards premium product and ways to make advances in the sector from the United States and other markets. ‘I have yet to meet someone who does not want to visit New Zealand, so the proposition is already attractive and Tourism New Zealand has done a great job there. The challenge is conversion. Americans think we are half-way between earth and the moon so we are doing work to overcome the tyranny of distance.’
He says part of this is introducing new and improved product that focus on a sleep proposition (SkyNest being one of five that he notes).
The WiT event, which continues today, kicked off with a presentation on Queenstown’s effort to become a travel and hospitality technology hub. Technology Queenstown chair says the initiative was born out of Covid-19 and the realisation that an economy depending on tourism for more than 50% of its GDP needed to diversify.
Marc Bartram, Orbit World Travel; Shannon Aston, House of Travel; Craig Jenkinson, Orbit World Travel; Piers Charters-Wood, Amadeus
Jacqui Walshe, The Walshe Group; Mia Penisula, Prue Halstead, both Invest South; Katrina Barry, Technology Queenstown
Discussing Destinations: Demand, Sustainability and Tech... René de Monchy, Tourism New Zealand; Rod Cuthbert, Toirism Tasmania/founder of Viator; Adela Issachar Aru, Vanuatu Tourism Office; Mat Woods, Destination Queenstown
