By Niall McCrae:
The natural wonders of Milford Sound, Lake Taupo and Franz Josef Glacier have drawn tourists from around the world to New Zealand, a country so remote that it often disappears off the edge of a Mercator’s projection. With a burgeoning global middle class and increasingly adventurous travel, the Land of the Long White Cloud has become an essential destination on the tick-box list. That was until the Covid-19 pandemic.
The New Zealand government has been praised for its successful zero-Covid strategy, exploiting its island isolation, small populace and established biosecurity at ports of entry. There is no lockdown, but the country is effectively in lockout. Foreign tourism is suspended until at least 2022.
Plenty of time to save for that dream holiday. But hold your horses, because for New Zealand, the coronavirus has created an opportunity to reset the tourist industry. The strategy is quality over quantity: to radically reduce the number of visitors and to entice the super-rich.
Appointed as minister for tourism after Labour Party won the election last autumn, Stuart Nash plans to target the global elite instead of grotty backpackers who ‘pull over to the side of the road and shit in our waterways’. Instead, ideal tourist ‘looking for a piece of paradise’ will be the type who ‘hires a helicopter around Franz Josef and eats at a top-end restaurant’. Instead of biodegradable excrement, sightseers will leave a heavy carbon footprint. The sound of noisy speedboats will reverberate around the lake at Queenstown, echoing off the Remarkables mountain range.
Simon Upton, parliamentary commissioner for the environment, asserts that New Zealand is suffering from ‘over-tourism’. Anyone living in Oxford or Cambridge will understand, although the number of tourists in the North and South Islands is hardly overwhelming. The new policy will devastate this struggling but significant sector of the Kiwi economy. Catering only for the 1% will lead to thousands of job losses, with adverse impact on society.
Not only will outsiders be deterred; so will ordinary New Zealanders. This proudly egalitarian society is becoming more divided by wealth. Ski resorts and nautical leisure pursuits are now too expensive for much of the domestic leisure market. Designated sites of natural beauty and wild habitat will be restricted to rich visitors and a servile workforce.
Jacinda Ardern, who has boasted of her socialist credentials, is committed to the globalist ‘Great Reset’, which will change the class stratification of society. The middle class, which drove a relentless growth in international tourism, is suffering from its first setback since emerging from the spoils of the Industrial Revolution. The rich are getting richer, while aspirational graduate cohorts will find fewer openings to the privileged professional level. In consequence, the Seychelles, Galapagos and New Zealand will be out of bounds for those of of Aldous Huxley’s bureaucratic Delta-Minus status.
If you thought a vaccine would be a passport to freedom, think again. For lesser mortals, back to Bognor or Bridders!
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