China expert downplays risk of tourism boycott
Wednesday, 20 February 2019
An expert on Chinese travel says New Zealand is unlikely to suffer a visitor boycott over security concerns about telco Huawei.
Dr Mingming Cheng has researched historical cases of the Philippines and Japan suffering dramatic drops in tourism following political disputes with China, but he did not believe the current New Zealand situation was in the same league.
The former Otago University tourism lecturer, now teaching digital marketing at Australia's Curtin University, is in Christchurch to speak about millennial Chinese travellers at Thursday's South Island Lantern Festival business forum.
Hesitation over the use of Huawei for Spark's 5G network has been linked to the decision by Chinese officials to postpone the official launch of the China New Zealand Year of Tourism, but Dr Cheng is sceptical.
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'I think a lot of industry practitioners have been too sensitive about that.'
Dr Cheng researched a 40 per cent drop in Chinese visitation to Japan after a political dispute over a group of uninhabited islands in 2012.
The study said outbursts of popular nationalism were provoked by international events that seemingly insulted China, and a significant number of travellers said their employers - mostly state-owned enterprises - also discouraged them from going to Japan during the dispute.
However Dr Cheng said there was a long history of political conflicts between the two nations which fed anti-Japan sentiment, and that was far from the case here.
'I don't see that message coming out from the Chinese Government at the moment, it's more about suspicions.'
He pointed out that Chinese consul travel warnings about crime in New Zealand issued over Chinese New Year also occurred in other destinations such as Australia, Canada and the US and were not evidence of any decline in the inter-country relationship.
Prime Minister Ardern's YouTube video statement welcoming the year of tourism indicated that the Government it wanted a positive relationship with China, said Dr Cheng.
'In 2012, both the Chinese and Japanese Governments took a hard stand on [the islands] and no one wanted to step down.'
Ardern has emphasised that no final decision had been made about whether to use Huawei, and Dr Cheng said it was doubtful that there would be a negative impact on tourism even if the telco giant was rejected for the Spark project.
'I think the chance is small considering the historical formal diplomatic and economic relations, as well as significant people–to–people contact between China and New Zealand.'
Dr Cheng thought Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment forecasts of 1 million Chinese arrivals by 2014 were optimistic and 700,000 might be a more realistic figure.
Despite a recent slight drop in Chinese visitor numbers in December, he said the New Zealand tourism industry should be positive about prospects for future growth, especially if it targeted second tier cities such as Huangzhou, rather than continuing to focus on Shanghai, Guangzhou and Beijing.
Tourism New Zealand chief executive Stephen England-Hall said there was no evidence the year of tourism launch delay was politically motivated.
'The conversations with the people on the ground is that there won't be any spill over effect at this point.
'There's disappointment around the place that it got postponed, but in terms of our relationship with China, and how things are going, things are on a strong footing.'