Covid-19: Nelson businesses hurting after 18 months of Covid

Thursday, 7 October 2021

Buying local has never been so important, and Nelson shoppers are being encouraged to splash their cash around the region.

After dealing with 18 months of disruption, the cumulative effects of Covid are continuing to put pressure on businesses in Nelson-Tasman.

Nelson Tasman Chamber of Commerce chief executive Ali Boswijk said while sectors such as hospitality, tourism and accommodation continue to bear the brunt of the economic impact, almost every business in the region had been affected.

Along with the obvious immediate effect of lockdowns and border closures, over time issues such as supply chain disruptions, labour shortages and workplace stress have become more prominent.

“Just about every single business is going to be impacted in some way shape or form,” Boswijk said.

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Nelson Tasman Chamber of Commerce chief executive Ali Boswijk said businesses across a range of sectors were feeling the pinch from Covid-19.

“There are those underlying things beyond the economic impact that business are starting to deal with.

“The stress of it is one of the biggest things – people are starting to get to the end of their tether.”

Boswijk said one of the biggest issues for the tourism and accommodation sector was the fact Auckland was still in lockdown.

“It’s not just tourism travel but business travel. Most major companies – as soon as there’s any major lockdown anywhere in the country – they just stop all travel.”

She said lack of labour was also a growing problem, not just in sectors such as horticulture – but also across a range of professions.

Busy streets in Richmond before the Alert Level 4 restrictions were imposed across the country in August

Supply chain issues were also making it difficult to get goods in – and out – of the country.

Boswijk said the flow-on effects had reached into unexpected areas.

“One of the businesses impacted were the people who do engraving on trophies. They've been members of the chamber for 40 years, their business almost completely stopped because no one was doing sport – they were literally not engraving anything.

“They’re not the people you immediately think of – we think of hospitality, hotels and motels, all those sorts of thing – we don’t necessarily think of people engraving trophies.”

Boswijk said anecdotally there had been some hospitality businesses yet to re-open after the level three, along with some which had to reduce staff numbers.

She said while some businesses had built up strong surpluses pre-Covid, the longer lockdowns went on the harder things would get.

An empty Trafalgar St during the second national lockdown in August.

“Businesses just can’t continue to be profitable [in that environment].”

Nelson Regional Development Agency chief executive Fiona Wilson said there was considerable variation in the economic effects from business to business.

“In the upcoming 12 months, we are anticipating significant continued impact to our region with continued challenges for exporting delays and skill shortages.

“Statistically we are tracking overall as a region quite well, but these figures don’t show the underlying differences, huge challenges in some sectors, and sentiment of anxiety which our team is hearing on the ground.”

Tasman Mayor Tim King said while areas like construction and primary industries had continued to do the heavy lifting for the economy during the past two years – the open-ended lockdown in Auckland was making it hard for tourism and hospitality to know what the summer would look like.

“The longer that [situation] takes to become clear, the less certainty there is.

“The best thing we can do is for to support local businesses when the opportunity arises.”

Supporting businesses to get through

Wilson said the NRDA was encouraging businesses to reach out to their teams and other support networks.

She said they were continuing to support businesses through their Regional Business Partner Programme, as well as through targeted campaigns such as the seasonal campaign Pick Nelson, and their recently launched We’ve Got You (support local) campaign.

Boswijk said shopping locally was one of easiest and most obvious things people could do to support businesses in the region – something which people in Nelson-Tasman were already buying into.

A recent Your Success/Publik Agency survey of 500 people showed that 92 per cent of people surveyed in Nelson said “supporting local businesses” was the main reason they wanted to buy local.

The survey also stated 58 per cent of people intended to spend at least the same, if not more than last year on local tourism activities.

Boswijk said with ongoing supply chain issues to get goods into the country, ordering things early for Christmas would be a huge help to businesses.

“If you're in a position to do it, don’t wait until December, do it earlier rather than later. It just starts to put money into people's accounts and gets the cash flow going.”