THL - Tourism Holdings

[Jinx]

News like this is making the market nervous. THL has strong prospects, but until there is an update on Trumps effect on USA tourism, the market is right to be cautious.

On the bright side I read somewhere recently that Russian tourism to USA is up by 80%!! (LOL - there's got to be a message there IMHO.)

Disc: Holder

All the stats in this article talk about incoming flight stats to the US. I'd imagine the 'trump effect' will impact the NZ tourism industry in a positive way, no mention of the outgoing flights from the US.

[iceman]

All the stats in this article talk about incoming flight stats to the US. I'd imagine the 'trump effect' will impact the NZ tourism industry in a positive way, no mention of the outgoing flights from the US.

35-40% of THL profit comes from the USA and it is forecasting a significant growth there in coming years. So should there be a serious Trump effect, it is highly likely to affect THL's business.

[JeremyALD]

Is there anyway to get stats on the number of visitors to the USA, especially from UK and Europe? This would help us understand trends.

Statistics New Zealand has so much info on number of arrivals, country of origin ect but I'm struggling to find much on the USA stat websites. Sure there must be monthly reporting on this type of thing that you don't have to pay for?

The best I can find is the below report which provides tourism forcasts for the USA over the next five years. It all looks pretty positive (although this report was published in November 2016). I guess the question is how much Trump does impact tourist numbers.

http://travel.trade.gov/view/f-2000-...st_Summary.pdf

[iceman]

Same here JeremyALD. I struggle to find any up to date info. These are the closest I've come but the info is fairly old

https://www.ustravel.org/system/file...Sheet_2015.pdf
http://trade.gov/travelindicators/in...ers-to-usa.asp

[Leftfield]

Is there anyway to get stats on the number of visitors to the USA, especially from UK and Europe? This would help us understand trends.

http://travel.trade.gov/view/f-2000-...st_Summary.pdf

Hi JeremyALD and Iceman, the figures I referred to in my last post re THL were from this article in the Economist.

Although the article falls short on the detailed stats that we are seeking, it does give a disturbing trend. Here's what it was saying;

"WHEN President Donald Trump announced his travel ban last month, affecting people from seven majority-Muslim countries, this blog wondered what effect it would have on tourism and business travel to America. “The direct impact to tourism of a travel ban from these countries will be small,” a fellow Gulliver noted, since “each sends a piddling number of visitors to America.” But there was a bigger concern: “Will the decree—easily interpreted as a deep hostility to the world beyond America’s shores—put off global travellers?”
Two weeks later, it has become clear that the answer is yes.
Last week, the travel ban was blocked temporarily by a federal judge and the suspension upheld by a panel of appeals court judges. But that hasn’t stopped Mr Trump’s executive order from having an effect on travel to the United States.


Hopper, a market research firm, looked at online searches for flights into America, comparing the final weeks of the Obama administration with the first weeks of Mr Trump’s presidency. It found that these searches had declined by 17%. The overwhelming majority of countries studied showed a drop in interest. The most notable exception was Russia, which has been accused of meddling in November’s presidential election in Mr Trump’s favour and colluding with members of his team. Searches for flights to America from Russia increased by 88%.
The overall 17% decline, Hopper found, was much larger than the 1.8% drop that occurred between the same two periods a year ago, leading the company’s top data scientist to tell the Los Angeles Times that it is “hard to see any other short-term significant events that could be related,” other than Mr Trump’s assumption of the presidency and his travel ban."

[JeremyALD]

Hi JeremyALD and Iceman, the figures I referred to in my last post re THL were from this article in the Economist.

Although the article falls short on the detailed stats that we are seeking, it does give a disturbing trend. Here's what it was saying;

"WHEN President Donald Trump announced his travel ban last month, affecting people from seven majority-Muslim countries, this blog wondered what effect it would have on tourism and business travel to America. “The direct impact to tourism of a travel ban from these countries will be small,” a fellow Gulliver noted, since “each sends a piddling number of visitors to America.” But there was a bigger concern: “Will the decree—easily interpreted as a deep hostility to the world beyond America’s shores—put off global travellers?”
Two weeks later, it has become clear that the answer is yes.
Last week, the travel ban was blocked temporarily by a federal judge and the suspension upheld by a panel of appeals court judges. But that hasn’t stopped Mr Trump’s executive order from having an effect on travel to the United States.


Hopper, a market research firm, looked at online searches for flights into America, comparing the final weeks of the Obama administration with the first weeks of Mr Trump’s presidency. It found that these searches had declined by 17%. The overwhelming majority of countries studied showed a drop in interest. The most notable exception was Russia, which has been accused of meddling in November’s presidential election in Mr Trump’s favour and colluding with members of his team. Searches for flights to America from Russia increased by 88%.
The overall 17% decline, Hopper found, was much larger than the 1.8% drop that occurred between the same two periods a year ago, leading the company’s top data scientist to tell the Los Angeles Times that it is “hard to see any other short-term significant events that could be related,” other than Mr Trump’s assumption of the presidency and his travel ban."

Thanks very much. I guess it will be interesting if the trend was a direct result of the ban and bad press during the time and if things will return to normal in a few months when things settle down.....Mind you with Trump not sure if things will ever settle.

[arc]

Hopefully there will be a corresponding rise in NZ visitors, but this will do little to offset the potential 17% loss from the 35%-40% profit from the USA market.

Would be interesting to have some numbers to play with;

Edit: just found AIA entry reports, visitor numbers, ... hmmm.

[BlackPeter]

Thanks very much. I guess it will be interesting if the trend was a direct result of the ban and bad press during the time and if things will return to normal in a few months when things settle down.....Mind you with Trump not sure if things will ever settle.

Hopefully there will be a corresponding rise in NZ visitors, but this will do little to offset the potential 17% loss from the 35%-40% profit from the USA market.

Would be interesting to have some numbers to play with;

Edit: just found AIA entry reports, visitor numbers, ... hmmm.

I'd expect the damage Trump is doing to the tourism industry to be sticky. Not too many people like to holiday in destinations where the hosts are busy with loving only themselves and hating everybody else. Takes a long time to repair such a bad reputation.

And yes, this might mean more tourists for NZ. We just need to make sure that they are not put off by our already stretched infrastructure ... and the resulting "premium prices" exploiting tourists (like during the Lions tour). If we are not careful our reputation is changing as well. Heard only last week from some German acquaintances who toured NZ that they found the place dear (and it is, compared to most other countries) and not really offering value anymore.

[black knat]

And yes, this might mean more tourists for NZ. We just need to make sure that they are not put off by our already stretched infrastructure ... and the resulting "premium prices" exploiting tourists (like during the Lions tour). If we are not careful our reputation is changing as well. Heard only last week from some German acquaintances who toured NZ that they found the place dear (and it is, compared to most other countries) and not really offering value anymore.

New Zealand has always been a premium destination - that is a good thing and should stay that way. There are issues with public infrastructure in some areas but, aside from a few very limited exceptions, I doubt there is much in the way of "exploiting" going on. There are a lot of factors that go into pricing. For accommodation for example the economics of the industry have changed dramatically over the last 10 years. Most accommodation businesses have had to cope with a dramatic increase in their cost base as the use of international internet based booking agents has become prevalent. Staff costs for house-keeping staff have also increased dramatically - by more than 50% in some locations in the last few years. I think you will find that many accommodation businesses are not a profitable as you might think - even in supposed tourist hot spots.

[BlackPeter]

New Zealand has always been a premium destination - that is a good thing and should stay that way. There are issues with public infrastructure in some areas but, aside from a few very limited exceptions, I doubt there is much in the way of "exploiting" going on. There are a lot of factors that go into pricing. For accommodation for example the economics of the industry have changed dramatically over the last 10 years. Most accommodation businesses have had to cope with a dramatic increase in their cost base as the use of international internet based booking agents has become prevalent. Staff costs for house-keeping staff have also increased dramatically - by more than 50% in some locations in the last few years. I think you will find that many accommodation businesses are not a profitable as you might think - even in supposed tourist hot spots.

Look, no reason to find excuses. It is a fact that NZ is a very expensive destination for overseas tourist (as well, but not just due to the high NZ$), it is a fact that at least some tourist operators like to exploit shortages with shameless overpricing. Sure - not everybody, but you need only a few to spoil it for all. It doesn't matter to tourists whether these high prices are due to greed, inefficiency, too high costs for the host or other reasons, they just go next time somewhere else.

It is as well a fact that the clean and green reputation of our country is shining every day a bit less ... too many unswimmable and less attractive rivers and beaches, too many algae blooms and too much spraying and overstocking going on in the countryside.

Again - no need for excuses .... we can either fix the problems and keep our (still rather good) international reputation, or we can close our eyes, keep telling us how great we are and be surprised if tourists start looking for greener pastures.

I guess - even exploiting the Trump factor goes only that far ...