Early Edition with Kate Hawkesby

Tourism mojo.  Louise Upston fired off an enthusiastic press release last night.  "International visitor spend on the up” it proclaimed. New data, which we get from the International Visitor Survey, showed a 10% jump in spending on the previous year. Sounds impressive, right?  Sounds like we’re getting somewhere. Finally shaking off the Covid cobwebs.  But this is where we start to see the spin doctors earning their keep.  Let’s not forget we’ve been dealing with inflation outside the band over that year. Which means stuff costs more - restaurants and hotels included. So, are we actually getting more out of tourism than we were, and is the jumping up and down justified? Well, the measure of success ought to be pre-Covid, when everything was shut down, we battened down the hatches and kissed the world goodbye. By that measure, spending is still only 86% of what it was in 2019. Now, the very same Minister responsible for last night’s press release was the same Minister responsible for f