Crux Podcast: RealNZ's Dave Beeche on tourism, conservation - and local traffic

RealNZ's recently arrived CEO Dave Beeche has hit the ground running in terms of the challenges of balancing growth and conservation as well as the value of authenticity compared to too much packaging and hype. RealNZ runs many of our top tourism operations from the Earnslaw, Walter Peak station and Cardrona to Milord/Doubtful Sound cruises and the ferry to Stewart Island/Rakiura. 

Mr Beeche talks with Crux managing editor Peter Newport about a pivotal moment in Europe this year where he saw the value of limiting visitor numbers and charging for access to popular tourism attractions. In this case it was a famous coastal walk on the Italian coast where he got engaged more than 20 years earlier.

Mr Beeche also reveals that he was a "mystery shopper" on various RealNZ trips before making a final decision to take on the CEO job - and that this did not all go quite according to plan. 

The podcast interview touches on what the next five years may look like for tourism, how to improve the Queenstown CBD, the role of conservation within RealNZ and how he reckons (admittedly as a former Aucklander) that our local traffic is not that bad.

Plus Kim Bowden discusses the top stories of the week - that Otago Regional Council rates increase that somehow was a lot more than the expected 16 percent, the local fast track projects that not everybody welcomes, and the Crux project that replaces the missing council performance questions in this year's QLDC Quality of Life Survey.