Today is World Tourism Day - September 27th. This 3D render using Aerialod displays the Queenstown Gondola 🚡 & the Queenstown Waterfront.

Last week Murihiku (Southland & Otago) was hit by a deluge of rain 🌧 Queenstown declared a state of emergency after the town saw its largest daily rainfall totals in 24 years, with 87 mm of rain falling in the 24 hours to 9am on Friday, September 22 ☔
There were several other huge single day rainfall totals recorded on through Te Waipounamu (the South Island) on Thursday, with Milford Sound recording 318.99 mm, Gore 102.6 mm and Mount Cook 50.4mm.
This rainfall led to multiple debris and flooding events, with hundreds of people evacuated on Thursday night.
Two debris flows originating from Bob’s Peak came down the gullies pictured - through the cemetery (visible at the base of the peak, on the treeline) onto Brecon Street; and the second one to the right of the image onto Reavers Lane.
10 properties were red-stickered, meaning they cannot be entered, and another two were given yellow stickers.

It's without question that through Global Heating & Climate Change we will see more record breaking events like this.

Tourism leaders are grappling with the future of their industry as the impacts and disruptions of climate change become more widely felt.
Late last year Tourism Summit Aotearoa met to discuss the "inescapable reality" said chief executive Rebecca Ingram.
It was vital to do as much as they could to balance the flight to Aotearoa that international visitors must take... The realities of climate change were becoming more apparent, including the iconic West Coast glaciers retreating, Ingram said.
"One kilometre of retreat in the last 10 years. Yet I firmly believe we have opportunities here within these challenges."

With 60 percent of tourism's emissions coming from aviation, the long flights is not the only large obstacle to overcome ✈
"The airline goes through 138,000 litres an hour pre-Covid," said Air New Zealand chief operational integrity and safety officer David Morgan.
Air New Zealand has committed to reaching a net zero carbon emissions target by 2050, using zero emissions aircraft and fleet renewal.
Sustainable aviation fuels had the potential to roughly halve their emissions, he said.
"It's for the existing fleet. We've got a 787 that's going to arrive in 18 months time. It's got general electric engines on it and it's got technology that was invented 15 years ago.

Our National Tourism Strategy now more than ever needs to account for and address our Climate Change obligations; embracing ecotourism, better public transport, trains vs planes, preparation for tourism declines, biofuel development, these are just some of the ways we can future proof our tourism industry.

Geography, digital geography has a role to play in the various outcomes of Climate Change, watch this space as new technologies and methodologies evolve in our ever-changing world.