National Park
Participants felt that while many high school children in the area would like to pick up part time or after school work, but there was very little available:
"The other thing it’s really hard for them to get are jobs. Like an afterschool job. There’s jobs like housekeeping but I don’t want mine to do that until they could do a better job. I’d like to see evidence that they can do a professional job. Except for school holidays, it’s hard for them to take a job in housekeeping because they’re not available in the morning."
For young people entering the job market it was considered that many left National Park:
"There’s not much in the job market here. We see quite a few go away and come back once they've got a degree or a vocation. they come back on their own terms but straight from school there is not a lot here…. You’re more likely to see a local go and come back than you are to see a local leave school and stay here."
We bleed elderly and the young."
Mixed views were held in the group about the availability of work in National Park:
"I feel employment is harder here. I do my business online so I can work anywhere. But for my cousin he's been trying to look for a job he hasn't found anything."
"Although these places are always advertising? I was talking to the manager (redacted business name) the other day, he said they’re desperate for staff."
"A lot of the jobs are a bit more specialised, especially up the mountain."
"That's what I noticed."
"People tend to run their own business, work on the mountain, farm. Work at the water plant. Or work from home. There’s people who work for national agencies like St Johns or FENZ, Police."
"There’s a lot of projects about to take off. They’re just waiting on the final tick. The cycle way."
A few people in National Park worked from home via internet-based jobs, though some considered that this type of employment was not usual in National Park:
"I can think of two other couples in a similar position."
"I think it's more normal for young ski families to come here. So parents who work out the mountain come. It's more likely the way in, they'll come to work for RAL and for some of them there are jobs there that re all year old. That's more normal I think the digital workers are an anomaly. (Redacted) moved here because they came for skiing and decided to stay. He didn’t choose here as a place to come and work remotely, but working remotely enabled them to do that. "
Participants felt that National Park had been particularly affected by COVID and the uncertainty regarding the management of the ski fields. Several local businesses had closed:
"It does feel at the moment that the village is in a state of decline. Like we've lost, like, we've lost (redacted business name), we've lost (redacted business name), I don't know. You know, there was a lot of uncertainty about the mountain. So I don't know if that's an employment opportunity, but it does feel like we are in this tenuous place at the moment. "
"It (the management of the ski fields) will affect everyone."
"I’m sick to death of the negativity surrounding it. I wish that people would look at the positive things about it. The mountain is not going anywhere. The ski season is for 12 weeks of the year."
"But it’s more than that, it generally runs, it can run from 1 June right to the end of October which is five months. So it’s not 12 weeks."
"I’ve worked here for many years and those last, first and last months are…. The actual ski season amounts to 12 weeks. That’s the ski season."
"July, August, September. That’s the season that people come out of town although June was kicking off for out-of-towners. in terms of Happy Valley but it hasn't happened this year. This year because of the uncertainty with them being in liquidation, but now they've got the Snow Factory they can make snow from April ready for June so they were running that in June."
Residents emphasised that skiing was not the sum total of employment opportunities or tourism in the area:
"The mountain is not just ski fields. The mountain is a range of things, tramping, day, two hour, whatever. A range of other activities that people come here for. And they don't know that sometimes unless they've come down for skiing. So they're kind of interconnected. A lot of people come for skiing them come back for the summer to do other things that they only overcovered when they were here for the skiing. But there's also mountain biking, now very seldom you see cards coming with just skis now, they’ve all got mountain bikes or ebikes on them. Biking has been huge."
"Everyone thinks about Ruapehu above the snow line. Whereas Ruapehu for most of us it's below that. Like the snowline is the icing on the cake. Everything around here, we're part of the national cycle trail, there are really good trails that you can cycle on to from National Park village if you're staying here form every level from beginners to quite gnarly if you want to. And slowly they're linking them up. People will do the Timber Trail then get a shuttle down here to do the next little bit and go all the way down. They're slowly connecting them up, joining the dots."
"More people come in summer than in winter for the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. It’s a different market though. Skiing is less people, more money. There’s a lot of business around here involved in transport or accommodation. Or support services like food and that sort of thing for the Crossing. But people will come here for the one thing and go, “Oh wow, and then come back.”
"Like when the Chateaux had a special on accommodation after the first big lock down. A lot of people came here who had never heard of here but had heard of the Chateau. They recognised the images. You see them come in, they stay at the Chateau then stay somewhere else. You’d see the same family group come through five or six times. They'd never before thought of this as a destination. But the hook was the Chateau, then they’d come back to explore some more. One influencer said, “I’m ashamed to say this, but we always went Auckland to Wellington down the Desert Road, I always thought that the other side of Ruapehu was Taranaki.”
"There’s a legacy, a school of thought that’s, it’s still, it’s all about winter. That’s what we’ve got to shed internally ourselves and with our markets. Then if there is an eruption or something there is still things to do. Like, with all the things with RAL, everything is still functioning except the Chateau. You even, you take those two icons out, there still masses of stuff. "
In terms of recent news coverage of the ski fields, participants felt that:
"It was all so negative. To me it feels like people have been brainwashed into thinking it's all bad. And it isn't."
"I felt that it would have been better if local businesses had controlled that narrative and communicated about it on their own terms. People were like, what's going on? There is opportunity to control the narrative. There are local businesses here that are beautiful. I love going to these businesses. But people don't know about them. They only know about going to Whakapapa Ski Field, or Turoa Ski Field. You know, share some stories, meet, ‘da da da’ who has come all the way from Canada. It's all the same stuff as before COVID, just automatic feeds. There’s no feel to it. There’s no, it’s just like it’s templated."
"The narrative for this area shouldn’t be the mountain. It should be about the National Park. We don't have one mountain. A lot of the activities and things aren't just Ruapehu, it's Tongariro and even Ngauruhoe. And the DOC lands around are beautiful. The reason people should come here is not for skiing and snowboarding only, it's for the Tongariro National Park which is the oldest national park in New Zealand. There's so much to do."
Despite the emphasis that participants made on the wide variety of tourist activities available in the area, they explained that work may be unstable or precarious, and that in terms of recruiting for permanent staff, housing availability can be a barrier:
"It still feels like there’s not a lot of work available."
"There's not new jobs coming through. So like you've got Whakapapa Village, you've got Skotel, DOC office and visitor's centre. But they're… government jobs, they're stable and doing stuff."
"Jobs here are mainly hospitality and seasonal."
"RAL though has 200 year-round jobs, though that’s a relatively recent thing."
"Mountain Safety is seasonal."
"Getting staff here is like, from a hospitality perspective, even before COVID struggled to get staff. I mean, you'd get people on their work visas. But to get good staff, in a licensed venue you've got to get good staff because the penalty for getting in wrong could be 50 or 60 grand. So you need to have good staff. Post COVID, if you do hire someone and can get accommodation for them.... So chefs you can hire overseas and then you get them here and if they're single that's OK, but if they're coming with a family they could be staying in a single room."
"It's a whole circle, the housing, the lack of good jobs. There’s no social scene for these people without a bigger permanent population."
"The good jobs are there but it’s a Catch 22 with the houses."
