Reimagining tourism & travel with technology
The tech sector in the Queenstown Lakes is still in its early formation phase. That gives us a rare and valuable opportunity: to consciously decide what we want to build, and how we want to build it. Few regions get this chance to shape direction from the outset, define focus early, and set the foundations for the kind of national and global reputation they want to be known for.
Overseas experience shows us that to build a successful tech industry cluster you need to focus your time, resources and capability on a clearly defined domain. In other words, you need to be famous at something!
We think the solution for Queenstown Lakes is to build from our existing economic strengths, particularly tourism, and that we should aim to complement rather than replicate what is already happening elsewhere in New Zealand. For those reasons, we are going all in on Travel & Hospitality Tech as our first focus area.
Once we’ve made a success of Travel Tech, we will add on other industry clusters.
Travel is often seen as a niche within New Zealand’s broader tech landscape, but tourism itself is the country’s second largest industry. It is a foundational part of our economy, and one of our most globally visible export sectors. That means it deserves (and receives) serious, sustained investment in innovation and technology. If we want tourism to remain competitive, resilient and sustainable, we need to actively invest in how it evolves.
The opportunity for the region is twofold. Firstly, we must diversify the local economy to make it more resilient to external shocks. Secondly, we need to respond to the rapid disruption of travel through technology by investing in the long-term competitiveness of our tourism sector.
Over the past year, Technology Queenstown has undertaken extensive research into global Travel Tech ecosystems to see how other regions are positioning themselves. We’re building working relationships with the world’s leading Travel Tech clusters in Edinburgh, Barcelona and Montreal, learning directly from their experiences.
In many ways, Technology Queenstown operates like a start-up. There are plenty of ideas, but success comes down to timing, a bit of luck, and most importantly, focused execution. That is now our priority: to clearly define our role and deliver on it with intent and discipline.
Queenstown is already the world’s adventure capital, so we are asking ourselves ‘what would need to be true for Queenstown Lakes to become the Southern Hemisphere’s leading Travel Tech Hub?’
It’s a bold aspiration, and we recognise we cannot achieve it alone, or overnight. We are actively working with New Zealand travel and technology leaders, global technology companies and the University of Otago, to shape how this vision can be brought to life in a meaningful and sustainable way.
This is a defining opportunity for the Queenstown Lakes District. If we get the focus right now, we don’t just participate in the future of travel tech, we help shape it.