My guest today is Gavin Oliver, the founding director of EcoZip Adventures. Gavin's journey from UK visitor to successful business owner brings a unique perspective to the conversation about the trials and triumphs of New Zealand's tourism sector.

We dig into the current state of the industry, and ask if the absence of tourism dialogue in recent political campaigns is a missed opportunity. How should New Zealand revamp its tourism strategies? Should we be targeting 'high-value' visitors over backpackers? Is now the time to be cutting back on spending that promotes New Zealand to overseas tourists?

Pre-Covid, tourism was out number one earner. Now it has dropped to number three. Australia is upping its tourism marketing spend to aggressively target the lucrative foreign tourist markets. How we compete could make all the difference when it comes to recouping the lost billions in annual tourist spending, which keeps hundreds of thousands of Kiwis employed.

This is an important conversation that affects virtually all of us.