International tourism in NZ might be back, but it’s still falling short of pre-pandemic levels. These visitors still bring New Zealand huge economic benefits and put Aotearoa’s nature and culture up on the world stage.
The flip side is tourism does not come cheap. In some parts of Aotearoa it can put a strain on our infrastructure, our environment, and the communities hosting international visitors.
To remedy these issues, we need to do two things. First, the Government needs to recognise the benefit our industry brings to New Zealand.
Second, tourism and tourists need to give back - if we refuse to, we run the risk of becoming an extractive industry. Purely taking and not giving back does not run alongside the kaupapa of our industry.
In theory, an international visa levy might seem like a simple fix to a bigger problem, but unfortunately it’s more complicated.
The visitor levy adds a layer of cost to prospective travellers already considering a destination perceived as higher value, putting strain on an industry that has not bounced back to pre-Covid levels.
It’s a barrier to entry for distant international visitors and ignores Australia, our single biggest tourist market.
But more than anything, it just won’t raise the money that it needs to.
The IVL is intended to raise money to protect New Zealand’s environment. But if New Zealand is to truly protect its greatest taonga, then we will need a lot more money than what will be raised by the current proposal.
The tourism industry is not resourced to quantify how much economic benefit we’re already creating from our international visitors.
Through GST alone, a family heading to Queenstown and Rotorua for a week, spending $20,000, would be contibuting at least $3000 directly to central government.
What if all New Zealand tourism operators like ourselves at Rotorua Canopy Tours added a 1-2% levy on top of this GST?
This cost is paid by the consumer, and passed along directly to the local government. The earnings would dwarf money generated through the current IVL and mean a region like the Bay of Plenty would have millions more dollars every year to spend on building infrastructure and other things to support the influx of tourists.
Best of all, it improves the tourist centres, without costing the local tax base.
Beyond that, if a visitor stays longer in an area, the more they pay, and the more the region benefits. That’s the true definition of a regenerative tourism model. For this to work, the money would need to stay in the region where it is collected.
Raise the price on visiting nature areas
While our tourism industry’s biggest selling point is our incredible natural world, keeping this environment clean, green and pristine is not cheap.
In our own business, Rotorua Canopy Tours has put a huge amount of revenue back into restoring and caring for the environment we operate in.
Our conservation trust has worked tirelessly to give back to the forest we operate in. Our efforts saw the pest population drop to nearly 0% and native birds flock back to the forest.
This attention and care for the environment won us the TripAdvisor award for the World’s Best Nature Activity in 2022.
The Department of Conservation (DoC) is the biggest custodian of natural beauty in New Zealand. But it currently does not have the funding to protect what keeps people flying here from all around the world.
The pittance earned from the IVL will not change that. We need something more. I would suggest a user-pays system on all major nature tourism that is split into two tiers: internationals and locals.
An example of this could be if all visitors to significant nature areas needed an access pass. While this pass would be free for Kiwis, international visitors might need to pay to acquire it. That is common practice in parks across North America.
A system of this kind would be simple and could easily be spread across all nature sites, from DoC huts to hot springs.
This increased opportunity for capital would motivate local groups, iwi, councils, and landowners to build infrastructure for access.
This would lead to partnerships across New Zealand between key stakeholders, allowing people to connect with nature and generating revenue for all.
At its heart, the IVL is a blunt instrument. We cannot afford to rely on a toll at the gate to pay our way into protecting an entire country’s environment.
The Government’s reliance on the IVL also points to a simplistic view on the value tourists bring into the country.
Whatever we decide to do as an industry, it is important to look at tourism in New Zealand as a large and complex interlocked system.
Complex problems require complex solutions.
In an ideal world, funding generated from these additional taxes would be used to protect and restore our environment. But they would also contribute to supporting more tourism education, creating jobs, and a strong and robust local economy.
If that is the end result, then the industry as a whole would be happy to contribute its fair share.
