Pay per view at our coastal hotspots

By ANNE BESTON

Treasured holiday spots Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove should be tested as sites where visitors pay a fee, says Tourism Coromandel.

The top tourist spots are identified as sites where visitors could help pay for environmental protection and the cost of maintaining carparks, tracks and toilets.

Chief executive Jim Archibald said the pilot study idea, contained in Tourism Coromandel's latest strategic plan, should be researched in partnership with Thames Coromandel District Council and the Department of Conservation.

"It's naive for people to think, here's all this infrastructure, it's been put in place at great cost, we shouldn't have to pay," he said.

Cathedral Cove's coastal scenery attracts more than 100,000 sightseers a year, putting pressure on facilities. Around 130,000 flock annually to Hot Water Beach, 60 per cent estimated to be from overseas.

The concept of a "tourist tax" for access to New Zealand's most beautiful places may be gaining ground.

Clutha District Council is about to investigate how visitors could pay to sightsee in the Catlins wilderness area. Chief executive Ciaran Keogh said options included a road toll on the Southern Scenic Route or a tourist tax.

New Zealanders were "amateurish" toward tourism, he said. "It's real ma and pa stuff with the old dunny in the gravel carpark idea."

Tourism toppled the dairy industry as the country's top foreign exchange earner last year, tourists contributing an estimated $7.4 billion to the economy compared with dairying's $5.9 billion.

Department of Conservation Waikato boss Greg Martin said while charging Kiwis to visit favourite holiday spots would create a "furore", a pay and display carpark for Cathedral Cove had been considered.

Under the draft seabed and foreshore bill, areas such as Hot Water Beach and Cathedral Cove will come into DoC hands with significant cost increases. The Conservation Act forbids charging for access to DoC land.

The Big Squeeze

A major series on preserving the Coromandel Peninsula's beauty in the face of multi-billion-dollar developments, begins on Monday.