As the oil from the wrecked container ship Rena comes ashore, the disaster's economic impact is beginning to be felt on the businesses directly affected.

Charter operators are the first to be affected. The massive exclusion zone declared east of Rabbit Island, and encompassing Motiti Island has shut down many of the fishing and diving areas in the Western Bay of Plenty.

Rena is grounded on the Astrolabe Reef, about 25km away from Tauranga, with its leaking oil now washing ashore in the Western Bay of Plenty. Rena is pictured here in calm water on the morning it was grounded, before the economic impact it would have was known.

Declaring the zone also has insurance implications for commercial operators, casting doubt on their cover if oil is sucked into engine intakes.

It's virtually stopped the recreational fishing industry in its tracks. The extended zone is in place while containers and oil from the Rena come ashore. Its duration is unknown.

The Tauranga Chamber of Commerce has an 88 page Crisis Recovery Manual developed after the Christchurch disaster available to download from the chamber website.
'We have got a whole range of things we will be rolling out as well,” says chamber CEO Max Mason.

'We have got mentors, business advisors, consultants, a real lot of people coming forwards saying can they help. There is a huge amount of assistance available for those businesses.

'For example, the big thing for charter boat operators, or anybody potentially affected, the main thing for them is cash flow.

'So it's going to be about how they are going to manage that.

'A good case scenario is it is going to be finished in the next two months.

'If the oil can be contained, and off the beaches by then, we will be back in play for the beach activities in January.

'The main thing is cash flow. What we will be doing is working with those businesses to work through financial scenarios so they can take a cash flow forecast to their bank, so they can ask for an overdraft or loan to take them through that period.”

The chamber is also offering training courses on how to deal with the insurers, including applying for loss of income insurance, says Max.

'The key thing is we are still pretty short of facts about the medium or long term duration of this thing,” says Max.

Another thing to keep in mind is only 40 per cent of the Tauranga summer visitors are holiday makers.

'There's a huge amount of people that come here are visiting friends and relatives,” says Max.

'That is probably still going to happen. The most visible side of Tauranga is the beaches the water sports, but there is a huge amount of other things, the café society and visiting friends and relative there are lots of other things to do apart from going to the beach.

'I think that while there will be an impact but I think facts will start coming forward hopefully in the next two weeks and we will be making some good plans from that.”

The Bay of Plenty visitor industry is a $450m per annum industry and it could be impacted at the lead-up to the height of the season, says Max.

The chamber's economic assistance packages are also applicable to supplier businesses to the PSA affected kiwifruit industry, says Max.
'Potentially the clean-up could take up to several months, but if there are visitor cancellations now, it makes sense for affected business owners to be proactive and start developing some options.

'We are fortunate in being able to draw on the resources of the Canterbury Employers Chamber of Commerce, who have extensive experience in crisis management for business.

'Down the line we will need to get a good idea of the medium and long term business effects of these challenges, so we need an economic impact analysis developed as soon as the situation becomes clearer.”