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by Scott Stevens - Queenstown Media Group

Forever the optimist. The glass half full sort of guy. But I find myself laughing out loud when I read how Queenstown and New Zealand might do “quite well” out of the latest world catastrophe. Delusional is how I describe the prospect of doing well should the fuel crisis continue another month or more.

There is no hiding the fact an isolated country like ours, that relies on trading goods a very long way by ship or aircraft, is going to be completely rooted by rising costs and a short supply of fuel. Tourism? Forget it. It’s not going to happen at the level needed to sustain local businesses let alone see us thrive. The effect on our Queenstown Lakes economy will make Covid look like a delicious strawberry milkshake. That’s the reality folks and no amount of blue-sky dreaming is going to change it.

It took a while for the realities of the Covid pandemic to hit me. I was living in a dream thinking it was just a drama being played out in a faraway land until the lady sitting next to me on a plane was suddenly wearing a mask apologising for her “over reaction”. What? I am determined not to underestimate how globally affected we are this time round.

Out of that Covid catastrophe came all sorts of “blue sky” thinking on how the Queenstown Lakes and New Zealand generally were going to reimagine a better higher value, lower impact tourism industry. Then what happened? Nothing, and here we are back operating the way we always have, only with triple the national debt.

At least during Covid we had the income generating primary food industry in New Zealand, and the mining industry in Australia to keep both countries ticking over and the money cascading down to Queenstown via trans-tasman tourism dollars.

Nothing personal against the blue-sky thinkers, I’m sure they mean well, and I live on the optimistic side of life too. We need positive people in the world. However, we also need a serious dose of reality, and we are not getting that from the ideological dreamers living in fairyland spouting on about how great New Zealand will do when the dust settles over the Middle East.

What I can agree on is that once again it will be domestic and Aussie tourism that carries us here in the Queenstown Lakes. Easter long weekend always makes for a business boom. Make the most of it and thank Wānaka’s Warbirds for underpinning the reason our entire district will be full this weekend. However, I cannot see domestic and Aussie tourist dollars carrying us very far considering the cost escalation everyone will feel, and the uncertainty felt across the globe.

It is a fine line, the balance between optimism and delusional. Let’s walk the line, with eyes wide open and be careful not to drop down a Covid sized rabbit hole (again).