On Wednesday, Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, announced that New Zealand will be opening up their borders once more for international tourism. This news came as a relief for many sectors of the NZ economy, but heavily so on the entertainment and hospitality industries. While real money online casinos have thrived throughout the pandemic, the same cannot be said for landbased casinos. Just take a look at what happened to a local Hamilton casino in October last year.
The past two years have wreaked havoc on certain businesses within New Zealand, but few more so than the land-based casinos. As one can imagine, the SkyCity group are thrilled at this announcement!
According to Arden, the travel restriction lift includes the following:
As you can see, this will really help boost the entertainment sector of New Zealand. And one man in particular is thrilled about this development.
Callum Mallett recently commented on the travel lift. Although excited about it, he did mention that the group were anticipating a slower tourist reintroduction as opposed to the mass influx which will now occur. In an interview with RNZ, he stated,
"So across our business in both Queenstown, Hamilton and Auckland, we'll need to hire hundreds of staff so really excited about that starting."
This means growth for the economy s job creation as well, which is a welcome turn around after the previous two years.
During Covid-19’s peak period, the SkyCity Entertainment group had to retrench hundreds of employees. As such, this can be taken as a major win for the group.
According to Mallett,
"From a tourism perspective, particularly those in the entertainment and hospitality space, it has been a really challenging two years, so the return of the majority of New Zealand's international markets is a real boost for our sector."