The Rotorua Museum - Most survey respondents were from tourism, accommodation, or hospitality and food service. Photo: LDR / Laura Smith
The latest Rotorua business sentiment survey shows local companies are not immune to global instability.
Geopolitical volatility was the highest-ranked concern for business leaders, with 43 percent very or extremely concerned about its effect on their business.
This was the first time global concerns had outweighed local issues, such as finding skilled staff, the survey showed.
RotoruaNZ chief executive Andrew Wilson said this showed many business leaders were very connected with their global markets.
Most respondents were from tourism, accommodation, or hospitality and food service.
While these might be less affected by tariffs then export-led industries, Wilson said geopolitical volatility led to fluctuations in exchange rates, which effected the value of a visitor dollar.
"Obviously, when we've got a weaker New Zealand dollar, we look very favourable for international tourism."
He said the key for businesses riding out this volatility was having diversity in the markets they targeted.
"Within those international markets, have you got a good spread in terms of the types of countries you are focused on, so you're not ending up in a scenario where you've got all your eggs in one basket."
This was similar to other industries, like agriculture, which was also encouraged to look for new markets.
Wilson said he wasn't completely surprised to see the survey result.
"We've got a local economy, which is quite export-focused, so from that perspective, whether it is tourism or forest or wood processing, what's happening in that global environment is really important for local businesses."
RotoruaNZ began the business sentiment survey three years ago to get a better view of what was happening in the city's economy.
"A lot of banks do business confidence surveys, but we found a lot of the data was aggregated up at a regional or national level, so it was really about making sure we've got a view about what is going on in our local economy here in Rotorua," he said.
Business sentiment was up 14 percent since the last survey in October 2024, but was still a net negative of minus-11 percent - higher than the national figure of minus-29 percent, but Wilson said the trend toward positivity was a good sign.
"Certainly, that advance-metric of the positivity trend up is a really good signal in terms of what we will start to see over the next 12-24 months in terms of business activity."
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
