What was meant to be a grand return to business has become another nightmare for the tourism sector after a wet start to the year.<\/p>\n
On the back of two tough years, the tourism industry’s post-Covid return has been marred by poor weather in parts of the country.<\/p>\n
Tourism operators reliant on sunny skies have been dealt a blow as cancellations and refunds followed the rain.<\/p>\n
Dolphin Seafaris director Cille Fabert said it was reliant on fine weather to be able to run its dolphin encounter trips.<\/p>\n
“Covid was a bit easier in some respects because we had the government subsidy then, whereas now there is nothing we can do.”<\/p>\n
By the end of Sunday the Mt Maunganui company had only run four trips so far in 2023, well below its usual number, which would see boats going out daily.<\/p>\n
“It’s quite gut-wrenching actually, and when you see there is another front coming in … one after the other just battering us so, it’s not easy.”<\/p>\n
Rebooking for another dolphin sighting tour was not an option for many tourists Fabert said, with many in town for just a day.<\/p>\n
“Obviously a lot of people are paying in advance for the trips, so the amount of refunds has been insane.”<\/p>\n
Holiday campgrounds were also feeling the wrath of the weather.<\/p>\n
Whang\u0101rei Blue Heron Holiday Park owner Grant Mcgough said operators and holiday makers alike were affected.<\/p>\n
The business was primed for a great year as the public response to Covid-19 eased, but that had not eventuated so far, Mcgough said.<\/p>\n
“The campers are staying away while waiting for better weather to come along,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It would have been great to have a bumper season but it has tailed off quite a bit this last rainy period and I guess a lot of disappointed holiday people as well.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
SOURCE -RNZ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What was meant to be a grand return to business has become another nightmare for the tourism sector after a wet start to the year. On the back of two tough years, the tourism industry’s post-Covid return has been marred by poor weather in parts of the country. Tourism operators reliant on sunny skies have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2234"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2236,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2234\/revisions\/2236"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}