Larry Williams Drive

Today, the Government has done the thing that the tourism industry was hoping they wouldn't do and increased the visitor levy - the amount that tourists pay to come here - from $35 bucks to $100.That is the high end of what they were considering. The Government could have gone with $50, or $70, or just left it at $35. But they went full noise to $100. Now in principle, I'm on board with this. I've long thought tourists need to pay more for what they use here, because if they're not paying for it, we're subsidising them. How long have we talked about the poor punters in Queenstown who have to pay for the roads the tourists jam up, the water infrastructure that tourists get to use to have a nice time, the public toilets the tourists use - it's not fair for ratepayers to have to subsidise an industry.But I don't think now is the time to be doing this. For some reason, tourists just aren't coming back here like we thought they would. Five years on from Covid really starting, our tourism numbers are only back to a