Nadine Toe Toe and her family run Kohutapu Lodge and Tribal Tours in Murupara, a northeastern village with about 2,000 people, about 90 percent of whom are Maori. Before the pandemic, about 98 percent of the company’s customers came from abroad.
“We wanted to create a truly truthful, real, cultural experience that shows our history, but also our reality,” said Ms. Toe Toe, 43 ,. “When Covid struck and we lost all our business overnight, we were suddenly confronted with the reality that the domestic market doesn’t make ‘cultural products’ – it’s not on the priority list.”
To attract local visitors, the company had to be renamed, she said. That meant moving away from providing an immersive experience of contemporary Maori culture, which many New Zealanders think they already know well.
“Before Covid, it was always our culture that came first – that we can stand there proudly and tell the world who we are, where we come from, why it is important to be Maori,” she said. “We are no longer a cultural tourism experience. We are now a lakeside property. “
Larger companies are also struggling. “We are suffering, no doubt about that,” said Sir John Davies, 79, a businessman who owns multiple ski resorts, the guided walks on the Routeburn and Milford tracks and the Hermitage Hotel in Mount Cook National Park.
Recently, he said, the Hermitage had 20 guests, against about 600 in an average year. He’s had to cut the staff at the hotel from 230 to less than 50. “Yesterday, $ 18,000 was turned over – the lowest I’ve ever seen in 25 years,” he said. “We are doing everything we can to attract domestic tourists. I mean, we always have. “
Tourist spots around the world, from New York to the Himalayas, have struggled without tourist money. In Bali, the Indonesian holiday destination, some catering companies have returned to agriculture. Some places, like Istanbul, have tried to keep fighting. Others, like Hawaii, reopen nervously.