Queenstown's Next Adventure: Building a Travel Tech Hub in New Zealand with Technology Queenstown

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Travel Trends Podcast. This is your host Dan Christian and we have a special spotlight episode for you today and it's all about a particular part in the world that I fell in love with many years ago traveling and that is the beautiful destination of Queenstown, New Zealand. And in our conversation today, we're going to be talking about turning one of the world's most iconic tourism destinations into a global hub for travel and hospitality technology. Now, if you've ever been to Queenstown, you know it's an extraordinarily beautiful place. It's famous for its mountains, adventure tourism, ski resorts and it's incredible scenery. But what's really interesting is what's behind the scenes because Queenstown is in the middle of an ambitious effort to build an entirely new economic engine around technology. And the person leading that charge is my guest today, Roger Sharp, founder of Technology Queenstown. Now Roger has had an incredible career in and of itself in the travel technology and investment space. He built and sold last minute.com in Australia, New Zealand. He chaired WebJet for over a decade. He served on the board of tourism New Zealand and today he chairs Webbeds, one of the fastest growing companies in the world. It's really a remarkable story. He's also a share of Northridge partners where he leads the firm's global technology practice. So he's really someone who understands the industry from just about every angle. I got a chance to spend a few days with him just recently at the Web and Travel Conference in Singapore, seeing him on stage, recording up close and just seeing him with his colleagues in the room. He's so incredibly well respected and it's clear why that's the case. And if you look at his project, Technology Queenstown, it starts back in March 2020 when we were right at the height of the pandemic and it brought international travel to a stand stand. And it brought international travel to a standstill, Queenstown, and I didn't realize this until I talked to Roger, but you know, the community of 54,000 people, they welcome around 3 million visitors every year. And tourism accounts for more than half of the local economy. So what do you think happens when the borders are closed? Well, almost overnight, one of the world's busiest tourism destinations went quiet and the community really started to hurt. For Roger, this was a wake up call rather than simply rebuilding the tourism economy that existed before COVID, he asked a much bigger question and I found this so fascinating. What if Queenstown could build an entirely new industry alongside tourism? And that is where this story gets really interesting because then Roger's traveled across the U.S. to place like Boseman, Montana and Bend, Oregon to understand how communities with similar characteristics had successfully developed thriving technology sectors. He's even been to Montreal, very close to me here in Canada and he took all of those lessons back to New Zealand with him and with the support of Accenture, he developed a 20 year vision to grow Queenstown technology sector economy to one billion in New Zealand dollars of annual GDP by 2043. So a very ambitious vision, but I think I would also say an achievable one given what you're going to hear from our conversation today, but you know, an ambitious vision for a relatively small community. And just before I bring him in, I just wanted to also highlight what I found particularly fascinating about Roger isn't he's just trying to turn Queenstown into the next Silicon Valley. Focus specifically on building a niche travel and hospitality technology specialty and that's what I really found fascinating a why I wanted to create the special spotlight together. But when you think about it, this all makes a lot of sense. Queenstown already has millions of visitors and international airport ski resorts, attractions, restaurants and tourism operators is essentially a living laboratory where travel technology companies can develop, test and scale solutions to problems that the industry faces every day. Technology Queenstown already has brought together some impressive partners, not just Accenture, but Queenstown Airport, the University of Otago, the New Zealand Stock Exchange. They're already developing a new innovation hub called base camp, introducing university programs focused on technology and entrepreneurship. And just as past July, they brought the web and travel conference to New Zealand for the very first time attracting more than 300 travel and technology leaders. So there's already some real momentum behind this vision. And what I want to explore with Roger today is could the next generation of travel technology come from the destinations themselves? That's what I find so fascinating rather than the big traditional technology hubs like Silicon Valley. So we're going to get into what the team has built, the ecosystem, what Queenstown has learned from the North American mountain towns, the role of AI and innovation. Why this model could offer a blueprint for destinations around the world, for a whistler and aspirin, to Zermatt and beyond, we're going to talk about what takes to attract global technology companies, investors and talent to a relatively small destination and how you convince an entire community to get behind a vision that can take more than 20 years to realize. There's a quote that Roger came across during his research and one that I particularly love is that you're planting acorns for trees that you'll never sit under. I absolutely love that. And I think that really captures the ambition behind this project. So on that note, Roger, welcome to the Travel Trends podcast, thanks so much for joining us. Hey, Dan, it's good to see you again. You know, I think we had dinner and Barcelona with Mauricio. We met up in Singapore and we're going to catch up in Fort Lauderdale so it's three times in person. You know, I live at the bottom of the world and you're at the other end. That's a pretty good going in one year. Yeah, absolutely. Highlights of my year, there you go, in three bookends. Now tell everyone, you're back in Queenstown now, is that right? Yeah, I just flew in last night here for a few days and my beloved Queenstown, I'm just looking at the window, a bit of snow, summer's coming. It's an amazing place, but you know that you've been here. I have. My wife has bungee jumped there, the AJ Hacking, of course, that got it all started. I've always been envious of the way that New Zealand has been so successful as marketing itself as such an adventure and adrenaline hub. Having lived in Australia and being from Canada, New Zealand is stunningly beautiful. I mean, I've had the privilege to travel to New Zealand a few times to spend a couple of weeks on the South Island doing the camper van and then a week in the North Island and I cannot wait to get back. But let's set the stage for anyone who's not been to Queenstown because if someone's looking at it on the map to understand where it is, I'm sure you come up against us all the time when you say, "Oh, I'm from New Zealand," and they say, "Where are you?" and they say, "Queenstown," and I go, "Where's that?" and I'm always amazed because I mean, everyone should know Queenstown because it is one of the most beautiful places in the world. I'm one of those people that sits here in envy knowing that when you look out the window, how stunningly beautiful it is, but tell everyone how you ended up in Queenstown, Roger? I've always had my wife and I've always had an affinity for mountains and with mountains. When we lived in Hong Kong when I was a tech banker going back 30 years, we'd always go to Whistler and your home country every summer. We fell in love with it and when we moved back down under after living overseas for about 30 years, we thought, "You know what, Queenstown, there's a place. Let's go and check it out." So we bought some land 25 years ago and fell in love with it. We actually only started living here less than 10 years ago. We built a place quite some years ago and decided when we sold a tech company, I was building from Singapore that we would try it. After two or three years, COVID came and the place got locked down and we've run to love the place. Little did I realize then that my great-grandfather and his brother settled near Queenstown in a place called Roxborough in the 1870s. So this long-standing affinity for Queenstown actually has some substance with what some family history is. Well, let's talk a little bit about your background because I mentioned that in the introduction, you've got an incredibly impressive CV in the travel industry in the investment community and seeing you on stage, you Roger in Singapore. The one thing that also stood out to me after getting time together in person and seeing you on stage is just how real and how humble you actually are. I think that is something that is quite endearing, especially if you want to bring people together for a project like this. But let's talk about your professional career and then we'll segue quickly into the technology Queenstown and this project that you have started as I mentioned around COVID and the journey you went on, but just in terms of the success you had in corporate and travel, what was your passion for travel in the first place? Was it always something you wanted to get into the travel industry and then you got into the technology, tell us a little bit about your journey into the industry at the beginning. I think when you grow up as a Kiwi and you're at the bottom of the world, it's kind of ingrained in you that you've got to travel and here we have a signal to our OE, our overseas experience. The moment you finish your apprenticeship or your university degree or school or college, you used to just go to London and I went to the US because my girlfriend at the time went there. So it's kind of part of your DNA that you travel and you, you know, we don't travel anywhere for less than about 12 hours and often 24 to 30, you know, it's not unusual for us to spend a day and a half getting some way, but we're kind of used to it. Serendipitously, I built a software company solder, joined an investment bank, and the first deal they put me on was the IPO of a New Zeal, which was the first IPO of an airline in the Southern Hemisphere from memory, and that went pretty well, and I said to my boss, would you back me, I want to do some more airline deals. He said, "Sure, not just have our shop, so I ended up, my team helped advise the government on merging Australian Airlines and Qantas, and then we advised British Airways on by 25% of Qantas, and then when we moved to Asia, I worked on part of the Tai Airways privatization, and then my firm worked on Beijing Airport and a bunch of other things." So, it became an interest area, I thought, you know, the concept of merging travel plus financial services, and investment banking made a lot of sense, but it wasn't until I left the bank that I was working for, and moved the family back to Australia from the UK, that online travel became a thing, and about 99, 2000, and when we got to Sydney, a group of us invested in a pocket engine, which had failed spectacularly in the tech wreck, and we resuscitated it, rejuvenated it, fixed it, injected it into a small public company called Travel.com, which owned 75% of last minute.com, which was this fabulous pink brand that was growing around the world. It was growing around the world. High energy, fun. We saw we built last minute, we sold the company just before the financial crisis to what if, which was then acquired by Expedia. I just joined the board of Webjet, which was the number one flight to OTA in Australia and New Zealand, and chaired that for about a decade. We spun it off a couple of years ago, and now chaired Webbeds, which is a large B2B business, which I don't run it, we've got a fantastic management team, I chaired the board, but we've built that from zero to something quite significant over the last decade, and I'm super proud of that. And all of that led to technology quaint's time. This is a few other bits and pieces, Dan, but that's how it all came together. I appreciate you sharing that, because I think it is an important context for our listeners to understand the journey that you had been on and the success you've had in the corporate space. And I remember what had very well for my time living in Australia before they were acquired, and obviously, as they acquired last minute. It's amazing just to see in you obviously could talk at length about the history of the travel industry and the online space and the big OTAs. But you've really been on the forefront of all of this was part of why I wanted to convey to all of our listeners. And so then all of a sudden, COVID happens, and you are like so many of us stuck in place, because this industry that clearly we both love is all of a sudden in complete and utter panic and distress. And people are losing their jobs. And I mean, so many people were so negatively impacted by the pandemic and many industries, but travel was one of the, you know, there was winners and losers during the pandemic and travel companies were. Unfortunately, the losers because people couldn't get on planes, they couldn't go anywhere. And so it was the genesis for this podcast as our listeners know, because I was standing in LA having moved the US region with the ambitions of continued to grow was a $1.1 billion region for the company. And looking out my window in an office that was supposed to have 500 people and there was only three of us coming into the office regularly to try and show face and keep the company moving forward preparing to be on the other side of the pandemic. But I certainly had those moments Roger looking out the window thinking what the hell have I done what am I doing coming into this office every day when is this industry going to come back. And I love the fact that you are going through something as we all were during that time and there you were in Queenstown looking at all these people that have moved there that are out of jobs and are trying to make ends meet. So tell us a little bit about I know I shared in the introduction, my view from the outside looking in, but tell us a little bit more about that moment on what crystallize for you in that moment that led you on this new journey. Well actually I was on the board of I was deputy chair of tourism New Zealand at the time and we we got these shock messages from Wellington the Capitol that the borders might even close and we we couldn't believe it we've never seen any instance of borders closing globally. So we started getting advanced warning and then the jungle drums started rumbling from over Australia. We're WebJet was based that you know things were not good and the moment it really dawned on me was this is really semi famous article in the Australian financial review the financial newspaper that people read over there. And it said Roger and his mates were cycling across the southern helps on their bikes Roger and his Aussie mates and you got a call from the CEO saying Sharpie you better come to Melbourne. And it was indeed the MD of WebJet and the context is you know we were making well over a hundred million dollars a week but we had well over a hundred billion dollars cash at bank and we were growing fast and we're a fantastic business. And he said Roger seriously you need to come here now because we'll be out of business in six weeks. And so I I rode my mountain bike to the nearest town managed to get home and get a flight said to my wife I don't know what comes next but I'll see you when I see you. And we all sat around and the table when I got to Melbourne we realized that the confluence of events and he got 25 million of overheads in a month. And not just zero revenues because everything is ground or whole but you've got to issue refunds your hundred millions not I'll ask very long so we had to put a massive restructuring program in place. And you know we decided that although there were no vaccines at the time there was no certainty what we were going to do was build market share come out the other side stronger absolutely on all our commitments our financial commitments to our partners. And try and keep as many staff as we could and go that business which is now we beds has an amazing leadership team and I go to give them massive credit for what we did we. We raised in total half a billion dollars 342 out of equity in the rest and convertible notes to get through we. Reengineered that business completely and came out with massively more market share and a bit of business now I flew home John. The MD and I were. We found that we were in a hotel and Sydney try to raise money like it was hard raising money markets were free for travel was stuffed. And we found that we were in a hotel doing zoom calls with investors who won't go into the office and one day we looked at each other said what are we doing here we should go home and do it by zoom so I got the second to last flight into New Zealand. Before the borders closed just got home I would have been separated from my wife for you know months if I if I hadn't come home. We did it all by zoom on the first of April at noon 2020 we had a board meeting who raised the money it was an absolute miracle say. And then I thought I was going to sleep for two months then it was we went 24 seven to get an outcome here. And I got this call from a local businessman who became a friend in Queenstown like I called John Wickstrom is the founder of magic memories and John said you don't know me but that thing you just did that I read about the newspaper we need one of those because we're going to go broke as well. So I didn't sleep for two months I helped John refinance his business and then the mayor called and said hey we've got several thousand foreign workers getting food parcels. It's getting really tough here and we had quite major stresses in our community. If you think about it if you're a small operator what do you do you probably borrow money against your home you draw down on your mortgage to meet payroll in the hope that borders will open and when they don't you borrow money it just causes all sorts of issues. So the mayor said Roger this is a boom town every time it booms we forget about diversifying the economy and we just make money and enjoy ourselves and then when we have a crash we think we need to diversify. We start planning to diversify but then it booms again and everyone forgets and what we need if you know something about tech what we need to do is serve we can build a tech economy here. To provide a bit of diversification and just economic shelter so we haven't got all our eggs in one basket and that's how it started then. It's a really inspiring story and I think just to share with all of our listeners to the obviously a low point for both of us and many people listening to this that are shuddering thinking back to those dark early days. Um, we're still still fully coming to understand the ramifications of what transpired during that time, and I think most parents, as I make that statement, understand where I'm coming from with their kids, being taken out of school, or their school's being shut for two years, and we think about the Spanish influenza from 100 years ago, and there was parallels to that, but really nothing like this has ever happened in modern history. And so, even though we want to look back and say, yeah, we managed to navigate through that, a lot of the things that happened to us and impact us during that time are going to affect us for the rest of our lives and decisions that we make about what we value is important. So I do, I just wanted to highlight that or underscore that because it is a profound shift when you look at this beautiful place that you've been calling home, how negatively is impacting deciding, we're once in all, we're going to make a change rather than just going back to the booming tourism market. We're going to make sure that we create a technology hub here in Queenstown. And that's when my first met Roger and heard more about this. I was so intrigued. But before we get into the technology Queenstown, I want you to take us on this journey that you went on. One of my favorite movies is in 2009, a way we go, John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph, and there are a young couple traveling around the U.S. is what made me think of you as you were going on this journey, they are trying to figure out where they're going to live and make a home for themselves and start a family. And they keep going to these different communities and they ultimately discover that none of them are quite right for them and they go and make their own. And I feel like that's what you've done with technology Queenstown, but you've learned a lot on your journey. So tell us about that journey you went on. The places you went to and what you learned that you wanted to emulate and also what you wanted to avoid because I think that obviously has led to this 20 year vision. So take us through those travels. Well, I think there's a sort of a bit of a personal journey and then there's the physical journey and on the personal journey, this was one of those moments when your community needs something and I just figured at a point in your life you want to do something that's not for you, that does not involve money or anything else. And here was a need and on paper I might have some of the skills to solve the problem. But I thought about it, I went back and forth to Wellington, the capital to try and get government support and said, "Oh, I'll give my time, but we need support, we need capital, we need moral support, we need probably legislative support to do something here. It's quite ambitious." And they went, "Yeah, there's a key way expression, "Yeah, nah," which means sort of no way. But can mean lots of things, but in that context it meant we're not going to fund you. So I thought, "Well, it needs to be done or do it myself." And if you think about being in a small mountain town and launching a project like this, there will be no sayers, there will be people who say it's not feasible. And so I thought, okay, I'm going to be really quantitative about this, I'm going to make it very numbers based and I'm going to get all the facts assembled so that when I stand up on a soapbox to convince my fellow residents of Queensland, this is a good idea. They don't think it's some smart, smart, alert tech guy coming in to wreck the community. This is actually all the community initiatives. So we started by going, so when the borders opened up, I flew to Portland, I flew to LA, they went dashed up to Portland and by the way, Portland was really in bad shape at the time. It was kind of the first faxie that came out, but I was shocked at Portland because I'd been there in 2019 at a great time. Hopped in a car, drove down to Bend Oregon. I had been introduced to this fabulous guy called Dino Vendetti, and Dino has become a good friend. He's really the father of tech and Bend Oregon, and he was a venture capitalist who moved there. There are a couple of forms or fortune articles written about what he did, and he had a formula for building a tech ecosystem in a mountain town. So Dino introduced me to all of his friends around the Rockies, and I did a road trip, did thousands of miles. So I went from Bend up to Spokane, up to Boseman, down to Denver, to Boulder across to Durango right up the west slope all the way to Aspen, tell your own, and saw wherever possible the venture, local venture fund, the Chamber of Commerce, sometimes the mayor, the economic development unit, if there was one, you know, accelerators, angels, whoever was there, companies to work out what worked and what didn't work, because New Zealanders have this sort of number eight wife philosophy. Number eight is a type of wire that you could use to make anything, and it's become a sort of a euphemism for the way the country operates, I didn't want to number it, why are this? I didn't want to learn the hardware, or to find out how other people had been successful, or had failed at building a tech ecosystem and just take the shortcut, like the path of least resistance to success. And so I asked the same questions of all these people, and of course everybody was very generous with their time as Americans are, and very generous with their insights, so you have made some great friends and learned what do you need, you've got to have an airport, you've got to have a good flight schedule, you've got to have a talent pool, so it means having a university, you've got to have some research, you've got to have a lunatic spearheading a project, and you've got to look nice that it takes time, and you've got to have a plan, and you need a few other bits and pieces, but those were the starting points. So we do have an airport, we've got 25-26 flight movements to inform the east coast of Australia every day, let alone lots of movements to other major cities in New Zealand, we've convinced the University of Otago, which is the provincial champion in Dunedin to launch a campus here and the university courses are starting in 27 and 28, apparently I'm the lunatic, but you do need, you do need some up with an extraordinary level of commitment, and you know a vision that the impossible can be achieved, so I'm with, you know, what I'd learn in the states, I came back and thought, right, we've got to put some hard numbers behind this, because ultimately, if you can approve an impossible concept like this, you've got to set up what it actually means, so in quantitative terms, you know, this is about a $5 billion economy, we want to get, say, a billion in tech GDP, which matches what goes on in places like Boulder and Bend, you can get tech to 15 to 20% of GDP if you're thoughtful and careful over a sustained period of time, and that's what we're going to do, so, so Accenture after many visits and much cajoling finally said, look, if you basically, if you just leave us alone, we'll do this for you for a extraordinary, and they're economic, I mean, I'm obviously exaggerating, but their economics team wrote a 20-year financial model or an econometric model saying, you know, to get to 20% of GDP, this is a number of tech workers you'd have, this is the flow-on effect, so we're not talking about billion dollars of SaaS revenue or TTV or GM there, any of that stuff, we're actually talking about GDP, so it's a number of people employed, it's the number of baristas and plumbers and support people who work with them, it's a combined effect, and the reality is to do this, we don't, you know, we are not trying to build Silicon Valley, that will be ludicrous, we're trying to build a niche travel and hospitality tech, to main here with three or five thousand workers over 20 years. Well, as we're having this conversation, I do want to make sure that for those of you who are multitasking, it's technologyqueenstown.com, so you can see the results of some of the studies and the work and the vision ultimately of what's going to be created, because as you mentioned, Roger, someone like yourself to spearhead it, I think having the tenacity, but also having the wisdom and the experience to know what is involved in a 20-year project, you know, and so on that Accenture Report, because clearly that was critical, you went on this journey, you realized you had all the fundamentals in place in terms of the airport, the access to talent, the connection to the university, and obviously with your background expertise, access to capital, so you all of a sudden you had the fundamentals in place which gave you, I presume, the confidence to go back and say, you know, we have something here, we can emulate this 15 to 20 percent of these, looking at these other examples in the US. How did that Accenture Report ultimately convince you and others that you are on to something, because that obviously was the ultimate validation, and then you presumably started building from there. We had a launch a couple of years ago, January a couple of years ago, and Accenture sent quite a large team over, and you know, so Accenture have made a pretty significant commitment to business in New Zealand, and they both saw the potential for Queensland to be a hub for them, but also it's It seems a very clear signal to the business community in New Zealand that you mean business and you care about the place where you're here to stay. So they sent a crew here to help launch it. And the guy is able to stand on a soapbox and say, "We've had a Fortune 500 companies economics unit analyze the plan and it's absolutely feasible and credible. How I'm going to argue against that?" And then I was able to say, "I've been to Ben, been to Boulder, been to Durango, been to tell you, the idea was to overcome objections before they arose and that's what we think it's a some extent managed to do." Well, the next step in this, which I found fascinating, is that technology Queenstown is a privately funded not-for-profit and you've got 12 foundation members, but you deliberately chose not to rely on central government funding and I'm really interested to know why that independence was so important and given, you know, you have this vision, you have this history in the industry, you've now got the Accenture Report. How did you then move towards and why did you decide to structure it the way that you have? Well, I think post-COVID, and New Zealand has struggled economically and our government just got different priorities and I just made the assessment that they will shower us with money when we're wildly successful and at least need it, but right now it's going to be really hard we're getting money from them and furthermore, we have a three-year electoral cycle here, I don't want to be going cap-and-hand to government every two and a half years looking for more money, I want the certainty of having funding to build this over a 20-year cycle. So we decided that, look, I've done a lot of capital raising in my career for tech companies and any capital raising I've done, I've, particularly if I'm sponsoring myself, I've had to stand up and say, I'll put the first money in, so I put my own money in and then my firm put its money in, my tech investment bank in all three departments, put money in and then I went to, ooh, trying to remember who I went to first, I think I went to Queenstown, Rosealt College and said, "Hey, my money's here, you should follow," and then went to the University of Otago and said, "Hey, our money's in here, you should follow," and then Accenture did, the stock exchanges, the law firm, Russell McVeigh did, the airport did, the local council did, the big energy company, Genesis Energy did, and today we've got 12 or 13 quite significant corporates, each putting in a modest amount of money committed for five years, and I know that we all get renewals or more people coming on board at the end. So we've got a modestly funded little not-for-profit with continuity of income for a number of years, we've had a foundation CEO, Sarah Russell, who's just finished her second year and has done an amazing job for us, we're actually in the market for a new CEO, Sarah is moving back to Sydney for family reasons, we've got 60 applicants for the next CEO of this business who will be someone very focused on travel and hospitality tech, which is the domain we want to build in. So it's like raising capital, you gotta start yourself, show your commitment, and then just wear out shoelether and convince people, and Dan, as I look back, I make it sound easier, in local language, bloody hard work raising up and it's a lot easier now. You did, and this is where the impact it's going to have on thousands of people in the community, it was obviously very savvy to get the University of Otago involved with launching new digital technology and entrepreneurship programs, which I know was starting next year, so the idea of having university presence was obviously essential to building a technology ecosystem, you saw that, you identified that early, you got them on board. I wanted to talk a little bit about your vision with respect to the thousands of new jobs that'll be created, because one of the things you'd highlighted to me, Roger, and this is where you meet certain people and you really connect with them, because I could see your vision very clearly, and it excited me, and if I was a young tech worker thinking about working in this in hospitality and going to live in Queenstown, I mean, what a paradise to have the opportunity to live there, to be educated there, to have opportunity. And one of the things that you would highlight it to is that there already is a housing affordability issue, a cost of living as already a challenge for many people who are trying to make a life for themselves in Queenstown. And so there's a disconnect in terms of local wages, cost of living, but if you can bring in higher paid technology, earning positions, all of a sudden, you're going to make that far more realistic for people. So what I wanted to get a sense of is that economic growth supports the local community. How does that work in practice? So take us through what, you know, that creating all these new jobs and opportunities, because that was the inequity, if you will, that you saw during the pandemic, that you wanted a correct course on. So share with all of our listeners what that vision actually then looks like in practice in the next 10 or 15 years. Well, I was talking to the then mayor of Tell Your Ride when I was there, and I said to Dan, how did you sell us to your community? And he said, well, Roger, it's pretty simple. You know, our job is to create world-class jobs with world-class wages for our kids. So they never have to leave home. And so yeah, we have housing issues. We've got cost issues, infrastructure issues. But here's the biggest issue. The biggest issue is that unless your kids work in tourism or hospitality, they're probably going to leave, and they may never come back. You know, I've got grown up kids who both live in Sydney. I would love it if they were here in Queenstown, but the reality is, you know, there isn't the word. There isn't a career path that suits them here. No, it's changing, and it's changing pretty quickly, but you know, that's the goal. So if you think about the North Star, the lighthouse on the hill you aim for, it's so the next generation of people in Queenstown, so their kids can get world-class jobs on world-class wages in Queenstown. So yeah, we have all these issues today, and no one said we were going to solve this problem today. We've given ourselves 20 years because we know, you know, that's a realistic time frame. I don't care if I'm not around when it comes to fruition. Somebody has to start the project and get it going. And you know, not everyone needs to live in the center of Queenstown to do something like this. With distributed workforces, we have being a, you know, very, very common place, if not mainstream and tech today. We've got an amazing community in Central Otago, which is the district in which, just let's talk about Otago, which is the district that Queenstown is in. We have beautiful destinations like Little Townsland, Brunorke, Wanaka, Alex, Cromwell, Clyde, all these towns that, you know, within an hour or two drive of Queenstown, we've got styling, we've got broadband, we've got everything you need to work remotely. You do not have to be in the center of town. So just the generalisation that housing is too expensive to pull this off is just, patiently and correct. Either you can live somewhere else and, you know, come in once a week and work remotely. Or if you're a high-paid tech worker, you can probably afford to live here. But I think it's worth going back a little bit in just asking what is actually in place and what do we need to be in place. We see the flywheel, if you like, being startups, scale-ups, remote workers and multinationals. You need all of those pulling together with a platform of a tech workforce and education below them. We've got, we've got a handful of really good travel and hospitality thick startups here, not enough, but we have the foundations of something. We have very few scale-ups, we've got one or two scale-ups here. We've got a stack of remote workers living in the mountains. You would be surprised at the number of very sophisticated, quite senior people working remotely here. And we have no multinationals. We do have remote workers for multinationals, but we don't have a Google office or anything like that. So we've got a lot of stuff to fill in. It's going to take time. And you know, for this to work like an ecosystem, you've got to have an environment where someone from a multinational feels adventurous. And they say, well, I don't know if Microsoft can do a startup now. So they can go into a hub for startups or in hard times, person in the startup community says, you know what, I want to go to Microsoft for a bit of safety. So you need the whole working together and that's going to take time. And there is no magical, there's no magic wand or playbook for this. There's a lot of file fast and experiment, but directionally it's good, directionally it's working. And one of the things that really stood out to me that intrigued me in your approach is not creating a general technology hub, really being focused on travel and hospitality. And given, as you mentioned, just then, Roger, what's unique about Queenstown is that you piloted a living test bed for travel technology. And there's a number of successful companies that have come out of that region. You mentioned magic memories as being one example of those, but the the problem you can solve, and this is the part that I'm sure our listeners would be intrigued to better understand, is that what that actually looks like in practice. So if you think of the types of businesses that are going to be attracted to developing travel technology in Queenstown, obviously, there's ski resorts, attractions, there's hotels, there's restaurants, there's there's millions of visitors in a relatively small area. What does it actually look like in practice for a travel technology company wanting to test a product and to prove? And the thing I can think of, Roger, my time in New Zealand because there's the jet boats. Some of the technology that New Zealand is developed is really very impressive. And it comes out of a need to develop something that is sustainable, which is obviously a big part of your cultural identity. And a beautiful place like Queenstown is how do you develop sustainable technology? And those constraints, sometimes they lead to these incredible breakthroughs. So tell us, what would actually it look like in practice? What type of businesses do you envision being a part of this? And what sort of problems would they be solving? When we started out, Dan, when you, it was technology that would be the focus. So if you start within a company and you ask, how do we build something that's some sustainable low impact, low impact environmentally, high impact economically. Technology was a, you know, a no-brainer. But then Sarah Russell, who is currently the CEO of Technology Queenstown, I spent quite a lot of time throwing spaghetti against the wall to work out what would stick. We looked at cyber security. We looked at environmental tech. We looked at all sorts of things to work out what we could be good at. If you're going to be in a small mountain town at the bottom of the world, in a high cost environment with infrastructure constraints, you better be world famous for something. You've got to be world famous. That's got to be your aspiration. You really don't be known for something. And so we decided, you know what, it's an adjacency. We've got three million tourists coming here. We've got densities of operators. We've got world-class companies offering experiences. You've mentioned Bungie, you've mentioned jet boats. There's world-class mountain vehicle. There's all sorts of great stuff here. Let's, let's build on that adjacency. And, you know, a great analogy is if you plant a seed in the desert, it's unlikely to grow. Plant a seed in the forest, it's going to grow. And so we're just planting a seed in our forest. And our forest here is tourism and hospitality. And we figured let's make travel and hospitality sets our tech really successful. And then we'll build our next vertical. It could be cyber, it could be something else. But don't try and plant a seed in the desert, plant a seed in the forest. And that's what we're doing. So I know that we'll talk about the wit conference in a moment. We just think the package of things to make travel and hospitality tech successful here means being a testbed. It means taking advantage of this amazing place and being able to trial your product here. It means convening the world's leaders and bringing them here in travel and hospitality. And so that's what we're doing. You know, we currently have a Singaporean Southeast Asian company called Zuzu, Frialing, an AI product with 15 local hotels. And they will launch the product globally from here if it's a success. It's not that well known, but we have a Southern Hemisphere testing ground at a place called Snow Farm where the world's major vehicle manufacturers, including Tesla, test their vehicles in super icy tough conditions. And we figured, well, if Tesla and Mercedes and BMW and Audi can test their new vehicles in just out of Queensland, why can't travel tech companies test their products here? And you know, that's not the only thing we're going to do. We're going to build locally as well. But it's a matter of, it's all about capitalizing on the advantages you've got. For sure. And obviously the advantage that you have is this beautiful backdrop and now the opportunity to put Queenstown on the global stage. So let's actually jump into the web and travel. And the, because not only do we just spend time together there and it was my first web and travel conference. As you know, Sioux and his just an extraordinary leader of that business. I got a chance to see it up close and we have a chance to record there. But you'd highlight it to me. You just had a web and travel conference in Queenstown. You brought 300 travel and technology leaders there for the first time. You're going to do it again in 2028. What was so important to you about bringing web and travel to Queenstown? And how did that change? How others see Queenstown as a destination for technology to, you know, to kind of start to wrap their head around your vision? It's, it's interesting, you know, Dan, when we did our financial modeling, we did five to seven years of negligible growth because you have to put the foundations in place for these things to work over the long haul. If you go out and talk about how wonderful you are and where, how great it is before the foundations are in place, you're going to come unstuck. And so we decided we would, you know, economic modeling shows, relatively low growth for a while. And we've massively beaten those targets. But that's another story. I think the frustrating thing on these journeys when you're two or three years in is you don't have that much to show for it. You know, we know this university coming. We know that also good stuff is going on, but the public don't see it. And we felt that the right launch strategy for travel and hospitality tech was to bring the best event here. And so, you know, you've got two brands globally, two platforms globally, one's yellow and one's focus right slash slash wet. And we decided to negotiate to bring wit here because they're convening power as extraordinary. And, you know, the process of bringing wit here. And again, we wore a lot of shoe leather ringing friends, CEOs, you know, guys who run airlines, people who run OTAs, bringing them here and getting them on stage and talking to them, told the industry, told the town that we were serious and that we had convening power and that people overseas believe in our mission. And our mission is to become the southern helmet that hemispheres travel technology hub. That is the mission. And, you know, strangely enough, you talk influential senior people overseas, they get it instantly. Locals thought it's a fantasy, but when they when wit came to town, suddenly, I think the penny dropped. This is real. We're getting some serious people into town. And they're really interested in this and they believe in the concept. Well, and it's interesting when you think about wit, which stands, of course, for a web in travel and that generation that you've been a part of, you know, even when we think about web beds and the journey you've been on now, obviously, the conversation is heavily shifting towards AI. We saw that together and I've got one specific question I wanted to ask you on this topic as it relates to technologies. And she've always been at the forefront of applying this technology to realize commercial benefits. And we're definitely going through some parallel times at the moment in terms of the dot com era, the AI revolution that we're seeing at the moment. The technology is very real. Some of the evaluations might be inflated and we'll see exactly how those play out in the next couple of years ahead. But the point is more that the underlying technology is real, just like we saw in the first dot com. Some evaluations got ahead of themselves, but the reality was we ended up getting there with companies like Amazon. And so when you think about this next wave of technology and I love your expression around the acorn and even your overall approach to this, like even if I don't see this, I want, I'm sure everyone agrees with me on this. Obviously, I want you to see the result of those efforts Roger 20 years. Your grandkids want you there. Your great grandkids want you there. And there's that expression. If you can live for the next five or 10 years, you can live to be 150. So let's hope that's going to be the case with technology. But tell us about the accelerant that is AI. And with that introduction, has that made you more bullish on Queen's town. And what you're seeing in these other incubators and tech hubs that that all of a sudden add in that layer and that technology. And there's the opportunity to go further faster. It's it's such a big topic isn't it every company that I'm involved with every tech company. company that I share, every discussion is about, you know, what now, what next. And I think the main thing that I've learned this year and last year is what you experienced yesterday or last year or last decade has very limited relevance. It is a very poor indicator of what's going to happen tomorrow because this is pretty different. You know, when I set up my first software company with my wife in the 80s, we raised around a venture capital and we put it all into a data general mini computer. And we had to raise another round to write code in cobalt. And fortunately, we finished that adventure successfully and sold it in early '87. But now, you know, and there's always this legend about two people in the garage, can create something great. But now, you know, with a few tokens and a cheap laptop, you can build stuff fast. And so that's a massive, massive threat at a massive opportunity. So, I mean, I could look at this two way stand. In Queenstown, we have a massive opportunity to build stuff that doesn't cost very much. At the same time, the stretches there are people just doing it so much better and faster at velocity everywhere around the world. So you've got to find your niche. But it is, it is the great accelerator. It's, it's definitely not there yet. I mean, yeah, okay, you can book a few things on news and instinct. It doesn't solve complex itineraries by any means and will not for quite some time. It doesn't solve for unique inventory. But, you know, you have to be a lot to not believe that in five or ten years, travel will be different. Absolutely. When you're obviously very familiar with that expression that people overestimate what's going to happen in the near term and underestimate the long term, you know, in a year compared to 10 years. And that's where I'd like to finish our conversation to get your view on both Rogers. So if we look ahead for technology Queenstown in 2027 to 2030, let's say. So in the next, you know, two to three years, take us through some of the more important priorities for the project. I know you've got the university course is you've got wit coming back in 2028. Take us through the next, we can have one to three years in terms of priorities and where people listening to this can get involved. And then let's finish by talking about 2043 and what the ideal state looks like then. So, but yeah, take us through 2027 to 2030. So 2027, the priority is to establish a startup program for travel and hospitality tech companies where in a position where we can offer the focus right chapter of their global startup pitch to Australian New Zealand and Pacific Islands companies. And I'm going to focus right to, you know, I've been judging and mentoring for last year or two to see how it all works. You can see us bringing a chapter of that organization to Queen's Tower next year. You can see us doing it, perhaps slightly differently. You know, I've been talking to some of the OGs, original gangsters of the travel sector about the dire shortage of venture capital for early stage travel tech and about the need for mentoring. And, you know, my aspiration for 2027 is to have a very limited program here where you can access the world's best mentors. Some of the absolute original gangsters of travel and hospitality tech, you bring your business to Queen's Town. We may not be Silicon Valley, but we'll connect you with the best people there are and we'll help you grow your business. That's a short term aspiration. I think that's something that's really needed and is really exciting and lots of opportunity there. And then in 28, we get the Masters of Digital Technology launched by the University of Otago. In 27, they launched their Bachelor of Entrepreneurship. So we really need the university program working and pumping out talent. But the challenge with bringing startups here and training people here is we don't have jobs for them. They'll move their startups elsewhere, although they'll get their university qualification and they'll go elsewhere. So, you know, we need to within five years create this flywheel effect so that there are jobs here so that people do their startups here. So the companies do move here. And that's kind of the valley of death that we've got to get across. We've got to get across it's like traversing the Grand Canyon, you know, you've got aspiration on one side and reality on the other and we've got to walk the tight rope that gets us there. And my kind of simple equation is wet, the event, the startup program, the deep, deep focus on solving travel and hospitality tech problems, the ability to be a global test bed, all of that stuff, you know, some of that will work and will stick. I can't tell you which it is yet, but some or all of it will stick and we're just going to, we're just going to work away at it and, you know, where we make mistakes will course correct and get going. Well, the exciting thing is this is real now. So those essential building blocks are bringing in the talent. We've seen this certainly, you know, I'll use the example that you're familiar with as well, the University of Waterloo here in Ontario, Canada, who's near research and motion, Blackberry, when that business went sideways, all that talent poured out and created other startups. And that entire university was initially feeding into rim Blackberry and then started feeding a whole ecosystem of startups. And there's countless examples of successful startups that have launched a result of that. So as you're sharing the University of Tago example, bringing in that fresh talent, smart, young educated people that want to do great things that want to change the world and then want to stay in a beautiful place. So like to me, the stars are aligning around technology, Queenstown, your leadership, the investment flowing, all the decisions that are being made. And there's something real and meaningful to get excited about now for all of our listeners that want to get involved and participate. And I'm sure as you create funding opportunities, the number of startups that will be applying and that will be keen to relocate or to be a part of this, it's going to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And I guess that's that's where I want to end their conversation, Roger, is the vision for Queenstown in 2040 or 2043. If we're having this conversation again and I sincerely hope that is the case. What will Queenstown look like and what will have changed for the people who live and work there? Well, it'll be a town where your kids don't have to leave to get world-class jobs on world-class wages. I think it's the third time I've said it on this podcast, but that's the bottom line, world-class jobs on world-class wages. So instead of having, it's not tourism or tech, we love tourism, it's tourism, plastic, but instead of having five, six, seven workers in a house on minimum wage with three or four cars serving the tourism sector. Maybe we can have a few thousand living without the same density, without the same number of vehicles, any much more money and injecting a bit more capital into the community. I just think it's a more of a balance that we want. Yeah, I'm going to add one more into that, which is a world-class lifestyle. That's what you often struggle to realize, which is that when you live in those places, you have a service jobs, which can be lower wage, and even though you can do well in tips, it doesn't necessarily mean for the opportunity to be able to buy a house and raise a family. So world-class jobs, world-class opportunities, world-class wages, and a world-class lifestyle, those, I think, for anyone listening to this, would be an incredible aspiration. I'm obviously very confident that you're going to achieve this, but I think that there's going to be so many exciting stages along the way. I'm certainly cheering you on and a big believer in what you're building. I'm sure many of our listeners now that I've got a chance to know you and understand your vision of what you're working on. I'd love to make sure that all of those listeners can find a way to reach out to you and the team and get involved. I've mentioned the website, of course, the technology queensdown.com, but what would be the other ways? Roger, you're obviously you're accessible on LinkedIn, but what would be the other ways for people to reach out to you, to get involved, and who should? Students, entrepreneurs, who should reach out, and where should they go? Well, thank you. Definitely LinkedIn, just send me a message. Always reply. Preferably, if you want to contribute rather than sell me something. I did want to say that the time zone here is a real factor. It's a combination of time zone and lifestyle. I get up, I rode my mountain bike, I go for a hike before Australia is opened. I can still talk to America for four or five hours before it shouts, and then Asia opens and then Europe. So you can operate, you know, and look from there. multiple times in this place, and you can still go skiing in the morning or mountain biking or hiking or whatever you want to do. So to people and to your audience, just reach out on LinkedIn. You know, we're gonna need experienced mentors. We've got space for people who want to come and work remotely from paradise. Like this is peaceful, it's clean, it's pristine, it's unbelievable. We've got this space for a whole lot of stuff here. If you're passionate about travel and hospitality tech, we're gonna need an entrepreneur and residents. As I mentioned before, recruiting a new CEO, join the list. We've got 60 applicants. If you've got capital, you want to invest it, of course. But mainly if you've got skill and you want to think about a sea change for a little while, this is a great place. Well, as you know, better than most Roger, you know, any great startup really starts with a problem that they solve. And I think that's what I'm excited to see the technology queens down, the number of the way that we see our tourism industry today when people are going up ski lifts and checking into hotels. And you see companies like Muse totally reinvigying the way that people do check into hotels with someone coming out with an iPad versus standing behind a computer. There's all these ways now that will always seem obvious when we look back. I mean, hindsight's always 2020. But what's going to be exciting to see is the number of startups that decide to embrace on this opportunity, to embrace this opportunity. And the innovations that are going to come out of it. And I know that will delight you to no end. I mean, achieving your GDP target, obviously, is one goal. But I'm sure there's going to be many other personal success along the way that will, you know, validate this division that you've had. Obviously, I know many people are going to reach out to you. I'm obviously very excited to continue to follow your journey. We'll see each other at Focusrite. I will absolutely make the commitment to be there in 2028 for the next web in travel. I can't wait to get back to Queenstown. But I just want to say thank you. Thank you for, you know, you mentioned about mentorship and you certainly exemplify that. And it's on stage in person. And I'm sure even people listening to this. I mean, you're someone that has a lot of gravitas based on your success and everything that you've worked on. And the fact you're doing something that is so personally meaningful. I'm sure lots of people will rally behind you. And I encourage you, those of you listening to this to reach out to Roger. You can learn from him and you can also be a part of this project. But yes, thank you for joining us. Thanks for the opportunity to collaborate together and I'm wishing every success in 2027 beyond. Thank you, Dan. So very kind words and probably not entirely justified, but I'll take them and look forward to seeing you at Focusrite. Absolutely. Likewise. And just want to turn to our listeners and just say thank you to each of you for joining us for this conversation with Roger. I'm hoping that many of you now all of a sudden have a much greater. We've never done a spotlight episode on a project like Technology Queenstown. And as soon as I got a chance to know Roger, I was like, this is a story that has to be told. So I'm hoping you enjoyed this as much as I did as being part of it. It's an ambitious project. But as I mentioned in the beginning, it's very achievable when you look at all the fundamentals that you're very clearly in place and things over the next, you know, we'll develop in the coming years. So definitely check out Technology Queenstown, follow the journey, reach out to reach out to Roger. And I also just want to say I think one of the things that makes this story so interesting is it started with a challenge that so many destinations around the world can relate to. What happens when your local economy depends almost entirely on tourism and suddenly that tourism disappears? And we've seen so many destinations around the world that when a major disruption happens, whether it be a political event or unfortunately a climate change, any number of things that can negatively impact tourism, all of a sudden a lot of people can be out of work overnight. And what I love about Roger's vision is how do we create something is more sustainable? It's so connected to the DNA of being from New Zealand and this beautiful part of the world that you want to make sure is maintained for future generations. And so definitely this conversation will need a part two. And I look forward to bringing that to you as Roger and his team create this incredible economic opportunity that creates new jobs, attracts investment, develops local talent and really positions Queenstown as the center for travel and hospitality innovation. And I hope one day it's not just the Southern hemisphere because I've heard that living in Australia, this is going to be one of the top in the world, not just the Southern hemisphere. So definitely we'll be continuing this conversation, looking forward to having Roger back. And don't forget we do post clips and highlights on our social channels. You can find those to see Roger on our Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, @traveltrendspotcast. And if you want more spotlight episodes, go to traveltrendspotcast.com. Thanks again for joining us. And until next time, safe travels.