>That's a large figure, but it's not as if New Zealand lacks any kind of other industry
It's also 15% of employment though, which isn't surprising because there's a lot of low wage service work done in that sector, it employs a huge chunk of the population.
For reference, both in terms of GDP contribution and employment that is larger than the contribution of the entire automotive industry to Germany.
And being German and seeing how people are starting to get worried about the economy, I can't see this working long term politically.
If you tell people in the tourism industry they now need to become dairy farmers at the other end of the country I think you'll be surprised how quickly the country opens up again.
Re:New Zealand eliminates Covid-19
by ApolloFortyNine on Friday May 08, 2020 @02:52AM
(#23112084)
I'd imagine a big issue would be dealing with shipping and business travel, besides having to write off 6% of your GDP. The disease spreads so rapidly, one case of a dock yard worker coming into close contact with a crew member, or a surface they touched, and commutes by bus each day, and you lock down your whole country again.
Re:New Zealand eliminates Covid-19
by ironic_ali on Friday May 08, 2020 @03:47AM
(#23112389)
> with a few sheep thrown in.
It's a lot more nuanced than that, they're fluffy and warm on those cold winter nights
That's a large figure, but it's not as if New Zealand lacks any kind of other industry. There's a massive primary industries (dairy, meat, logging, wine, plus others) where the country hasn't yet fully exploited it's opportunities yet for secondary value-add processing.
As a completely anecdotal observation, most tourists go to the South Island, where roughly a fifth of the population lives. The North Island is four times as densely populated. This disparity sometimes leads people to believe that country is entirely dependant on tourism, with a few sheep thrown in.
[0] https://tia.org.nz/about-the-industry/quick-facts-and-figure...