New Zealand's tourism industry has been delivered a sizeable blow during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic, but it provides an opportunity to create a stronger industry in the recovery, says CEO of Tourism Holdings Ltd Grant Webster.
The industry's state currently "doesn't get any worse", he told TVNZ1's Q+A with Jack Tame.
"Basically, international revenue has stopped, domestic revenue has stopped during the lockdown - this is at bad as it gets."
He said tourism in New Zealand was "about a $40 billion industry". He estimated the impact from Covid-19 was having at least a $10b hit.
"That's only going to grow," Mr Webster said.
He thought there could be more than 100,000 jobs lost - "That's about 25 per cent of employment base of tourism, could be more than that, could be 200,000."
"The hard reality is that there are going to be businesses that fall over, and potentially some iconic businesses that fall over.
"The risk is we see people coming in and buying assets really cheap... and then who knows what that path looks like.
"The other path is how we come together as an industry. Maybe link in with the Government some way, maybe we link in with publicly-listed vehicles."
Mr Webster said that left the potential to create a different, stronger industry.
"Whether we like it or not, this is a reset point, whether we like it or not the way the world has been in the past is not how we move forward.
"The tourism industry is resilient with really passionate people but now is the time to come together as a whole industry, the opportunity is there."
On how that new industry would look, Mr Webster said it could be "even more sustainability focused, linked to the community more, clearly come off a new base of visitor numbers, maybe an opportunity to regionalise to an even greater degree".
The current conditions could potentially see the less profitable end of tourism revenue decrease due to financial instability, but he said that could contribute to "a stronger industry in that regard".
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