High hopes visitors would flock to Queenstown over summer have been crushed ... so far.  

Businesses believe Covid restrictions and uncertainty are making people fearful of travelling to the tourist town.  

Around the Basin general manager, Steve Norton, told Tim Dower a third of businesses have shut up shop for good. 

“And there’d be probably another third that are really struggling at the moment, so I’d say some businesses are probably operating on 15–20% of what they were doing in pre-Covid times, in 2019.” 

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