Reinventing Queenstown

As the tumbleweeds swirled around the streets of Queenstown during the pandemic, tech entrepreneur Roger Sharp decided the time had come for the tourist mecca to diversify.

Sharp had long ago hitched his horse to the “one-trick pony” and its boom-bust economy – chairing ASX-listed digital travel company Webjet (as well as global software company Iress and Lotto New Zealand) from his office on a hilltop opposite Coronet Peak.

The need for change in Queenstown was hammered home during a fact-finding trip across the Pacific Northwest and Rockies in the United States last year. Sharp visited more than a dozen mountain towns diversifying their economies through building tech ecosystems. The message was clear: diversify and grow, or die.

According to a study commissioned by Sharp and his team, Queenstown’s reliance on tourism in 2021 stood at around 60 per cent of GDP (which was just under $3.3 billion), with tech generating less than 2 per cent, versus a national average of around 7 per cent. Further research showed the level of tech as a percentage of GDP in major tech cities around the world ranged from 15-25 per cent.

It is hard to imagine Queenstown ever in a death spiral but Sharp warns that another pandemic – or something even worse – could have end-of-(tourism)-life implications.

Sharp is the founder of North Ridge Partners, a technology-focused investment bank in Sydney and Singapore which works with technology companies across the Asia-Pacific. He has always seen the great potential for Queenstown to become a tech town – and harnessing the energy and resources of high-fliers quietly living in the hills and at least 200 techies working remotely for overseas companies. No one knows the true number, but Sharp believes that is the tip of the iceberg.

There are a number of organisations and businesses in the district playing a role in the sector, including Startup Queenstown Lakes and Remarkables Park, but the region has never had a plan for the tech sector, and the activities of its various actors have never been co-ordinated.

The Queenstown Tech project is a private not-for-profit enterprise, backed by Sharp; the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE); the Queenstown Lakes District Council; and the University of Otago. It has engaged a full-time researcher, an executive director, and a team of university professors to work on a 20-year plan.

A white paper has been written and is being reviewed. It will then go to a panel of senior business people in tech for their input. Then comes the consultation with participants in the sector in New Zealand and around the world, followed by a public consultation and engagement with the local council to ensure it is consistent with the council’s long-term diversification plan.

A not-for-profit trust has been formed – the name Whakatipu Hangarau (‘Queenstown Technology’) gifted by Ngāi Tahu, South Island’s principal iwi.

“One of the big lessons from the overseas trip is that you are never going to be able to talk to every person in town, but you want to at least provide people with an opportunity to understand what is proposed and provide comment.

“Overseas experience has been that the best way to get support from communities is to explain that if we’re successful, their children will never have to leave town to get high-paid, world-class jobs, or they’ll be able to come home to those opportunities after their OE.”

Sharp says they have the support of Mayor Glyn Lewers and all the way down into the communities. “Everyone I have spoken to around the district says, ‘If only we could offer a career path for our kids here so it wouldn’t break up our family’.

“We haven’t encountered any resistance. There’s been the odd person who has said, ‘Oh, do you really think it’s possible?’ Most have said if we can pull it off, it will be transformational for our town. There is a caveat that we have to be realistic and really thoughtful about this process. The enablers have to be in place. We don’t have enough affordable housing and we don’t want to increase car density dramatically. It is high economic impact versus low social impact.”

The good times have certainly returned for Queenstown but hospitality is still struggling to find staff. Australian visitors are back in force, but not the Chinese market. More foreign workers are arriving but cannot find accommodation.

As the tourism boom returns, Sharp says the risk is that everyone quickly forgets the past three years and the need for diversification. “This must be done because there will be another Black Swan event,” he says. “We have to have something else here, or we’re going to suffer badly again. We need to do it and we can do it. Necessity is the mother of invention.”

The Australian market is very important to the project because of the economic union with 25 million people and the cultural familiarity. Australians do not need a visa. They can buy a home and work in Queenstown. Americans do not have the same privileges.

Sharp says he could name dozens of chairs or CEOs of top companies, typically tech, in Australia who have homes in Queenstown, or at a minimum have a very strong opinion of Queenstown. “They see it as the only genuine alpine region within a short flight. They see it as a very cool place and an absolute differentiator, from an employer perspective, to be able to offer something special to their staff.

“A survey done before the pandemic identified between 80 and 100 remote tech workers within the community, working for foreign companies. The Mountain Club, a local co-working space and community has, I believe, at least 200 members, mostly in tech, but I believe that’s the tip of the iceberg.

“You’ve got silent contributors like me. I’m a remote worker, chairing two large Australian tech companies for years out of Queenstown. I have never really talked about it. Part of the challenge is to try to identify how many workers we have in the hills and in the valleys. The truth is, no one knows.”

Remote working and work from home is now the status quo, and setting up in cool locations such as Queenstown will become even more popular.

“The combination of having an environment that’s the envy of many, an ability to work from such an environment and an opportunity for companies to differentiate themselves by saying, ‘Oh, we’ve got a hub in Queenstown’, it’s a good cocktail,” says Sharp. “There is no formula that says how to do this, how to approach it. So we are making it up as we go, but it is based on sound logic and a lot of research.”

The project may be a private enterprise, but it is strictly not-for-profit. Sharp has resisted appointing a “symbolic” board straight away.

“How we govern the trust is a really interesting issue. We have a code of conduct, we have set out some operating principles. When it was first announced, there was a bit of pressure to appoint an appropriately diverse board quite quickly. I have resisted forming a governance unit until we have a strategy, we have funding and we know who all our stakeholders are. Until then, it is myself and Whakatipu Hangarau executive director Ron Clink, who is on secondment from MBIE, with input from key partners.”

Once the white paper is complete the plan is to set up a development agency to build the tech ecosystem – including everyone from education to venture capitalists, to platform, service and property companies. The “best people” from the participants will be considered for the board, depending on experience, diversity and composition.

“The idea is you have an effective group of governors around the table who can actually get things done. So a global platform company says, I would like to move 50 people to the wider region. She or he can lean over and have a direct discussion with the person who built 30,000 affordable apartments for Amazon, Microsoft or Intel on the West Coast of the US and say, ‘Are you able to build those for us?’ We’re focusing on assembling a group of people who can get it right.

“Now that will be very popular in some quarters and possibly less so in others. We have to be innovative to make this work and above all, we have to be effective. There is no magic fairy in Wellington with a magic wand sprinkling cash on Queenstown saying, ‘Let’s do this’.”

Sharp’s connection to the region is deep. His family origins are in central Otago with his forebears arriving in Roxburgh in 1874. And he stresses he is not in it for the money.

“As much as I’d like to, I don’t own a huge tract of land in the valley that I’m trying to turn into a tech metropolis. I have no vested interest. To the contrary, it’s time-consuming and costly, but that’s OK. There is a goal here, which is do something for the community.” 

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