The Tourism Export Council of New Zealand (TECNZ) has welcomed the government’s announcement of the R&D Tax Incentive for businesses, saying it opens doors for more innovation in the tourism sector.

Judy Chen, Chief Executive for TECNZ said, “Just like any industry, tourism is constantly having to adapt to change and often it is technological advances that require investment in research and development which has been unattainable to many in our industry.”

“The new tax incentive will give tourism businesses more confidence to take the plunge and commit to R&D. Previous funding application processes and criteria were not a natural fit for these sorts of businesses and, as a result, tourism often missed out on these funding opportunities.”

The key features of the R&D Tax Incentive include a credit rate of 15%, a $120 million cap on eligible expenditure and a minimum R&D expenditure threshold of $50,000 per year.  The definition of R&D also ensures the credit can be accessed more easily across all sectors.

“TECNZ has been focusing on the importance of future proofing our industry through the use of new technology.   At the TECNZ tourism conference in August we discussed how valuable artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are to our industry.

Investing in better data capture, analytics, and modeling tools are another example of how the industry can better understand visitor behaviour and therefore plan for future trends.   These sorts of technologies all take money to research and develop properly and the new tax incentive may now make that sort of investment viable.”

“Innovation is already alive and well in the sector when you consider some of the iconic kiwi inventions that have put New Zealand tourism on the map like, the Hamilton Jet, bungy, and zorb.  With these new tax incentives in place hopefully we will see more of this home-grown ingenuity in the future.”

“TECNZ is already engaging with Callaghan Innovation and MBIE Science and Innovation to highlight and communicate these opportunities and we invite other research institutes to look at tourism as a sector for new R&D funding opportunities.”

ENDS

 About the Tourism Export Council of New Zealand

The Tourism Export Council of New Zealand (TECNZ) is a trade association that represents the interests of the inbound tourism industry. Its membership includes inbound tour operators (Inbound Members) and attraction, activity, accommodation, transport suppliers, regional tourism organisations and tourism services providers (Allied Members). TECNZ members collectively handle most of New Zealand’s international visitor arrivals. www.tourismexportcouncil.org.nz.

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