Hamiltonian Sherry Zhen has switched from guiding Chinese visitors to selling houses, closing her small tourism business for the foreseeable future.
February 3 marks the first anniversary of New Zealand closing its borders to tourists from China, and the days of hosting groups of Chinese Amway staff or small private tours of a Cambridge Alpaca farm are long gone for Zhen, who got her real estate licence in July.
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Although some Chinese managed to get their holiday in before the border closure, and some opted to extend their stay, it’s estimated the loss in Chinese tourist spending over the past year is in the region of $1b.
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In Queenstown Stanley Tang’s Chinese restaurant the Frankton Ale House hasn’t taken a single booking for Chinese New Year, which falls on February 12.
Last Chinese New Year his premises was packed with 700 overseas customers, but the Covid-19 downturn has seen him lay off four of his five chefs and most of his wait staff.
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NZ Chinese Travel and Tourism chair Simon Cheung’s fleet of 100 rental vehicles has shrunk to 40, and out of about 500 specialist Chinese tourism operators, he says only a handful are still operating.
Many quit their office leases, sold off their buses and vans, and looked for new jobs in real estate, construction, or taxi driving, because adapting to a purely domestic market was just too hard.