PRESS RELEASE
15 MAY 2017
OUTDOORS PARTY CALLS FOR QUALITY NOT QUANTITY TOURISM
The recent Government announcement of $102M, of which $60M is new money, for funding regional tourism infrastructure and
the $67M for a new Great Walk are welcomed but completely miss the point according to the NZ Outdoors Party. “Labour’s
tourism tax proposal is another positive note but the fundamental issue here is not money but the anticipated sheer
volume of tourists overwhelming our treasured back country” Said David Haynes, NZ Outdoors Party Co-Leader.
“Whilst tourist numbers have increased over 40% in the last ten years, spend per tourist has fallen 24% in real terms.
Add this to the fact that the total Department of Conservation budget per tourist has also fallen 50%, allowing for
inflation, and we have all the making of another commodity industry – this is milk powder economics all over again”.
“The focus on solely growing quantity of tourists without long-term structural vision risks that we will do to our
precious public land what we have done to our lowland rivers – make short-term financial gains and long-term
destruction. Our public estate is taonga and the reality of Kiwis being displaced from Great Walks and premium trout
fisheries by too many tourists will not be addressed by taxes alone.” Said Haynes.
The Outdoors Party is proposing a lottery system for tourism, as successfully implemented in USA National Parks such as
Yosemite and Sequoia and for rafting the Colorado River. “The Milford Track is effectively a lottery system so there is
no reason we cannot extend this across our treasured estate to control numbers and hence retain the wilderness
experience Kiwis and tourists alike want.”
“This approach, combined with local Council by-laws clamping down on non-self contained freedom campers’ vehicles, can
elevate tourism from a volume commodity to a high value public asset. The New Zealand outdoors is a supreme global
treasure and here’s our chance to do things differently and better by focussing on quality not quantity.”
ENDS