Surviving Covid
Like everything in life, we all experience things in different ways. Things are have been good for us but many still suffer.
Before long we will have been going through the effects of Covid for a year. It started in China and the effects on many parts of the tourism world started to impact well before the lock downs started.
We had trouble getting crayfish but that was what appeared to be the worst of it. We aren't reliant on mass tourism and the Asian market for us has never been a big factor. Of course that was very dramatic for the likes of Queenstown and main centres with international airports.
By March of 2020 things started looking very different and all tourism was coming to a halt and the only contact you were getting was people cancelling their planned trips.
As a business on Stewart Island that meant a longer winter break than normal, but I will never complain about having more time off. We rethought our business and in February we had already decided to slow down our lives and business so that has mitigated much of the problems Covid has thrown at us. Apart from what we have changed the effect on Stewart Island has been quite the opposite of what would have been expected.
The Island is in a boom time. Kiwi's have added us to their list of places to see and that has meant our normally quiet times have been steady, if not busy. This is financially good after losing the last few months of last season and now there is plenty to be positive about.
We are very aware that the position we are in is not the same for everyone. It does highlight many issues that surround tourism and many other industries. When we build industries and businesses that relay on large numbers of customers we become vulnerable to large scale events like Covid. Our ability to withstand even the short periods of shutdown need to be addressed and where overheads are high these events become even more impactful.
As we start seeing a way through Covid and the prospect of having vaccines and more travel bubbles we need to make sure the new world of tourism is what we want and something that reflects our abilities to sustain it. Bulk tourism has never been our goal but there are many still set for that. The impacts on our way of live and the environment should now be weighed up and when it is time to hit the restart button lets create an industry that reflects what we want and what is truely needed.