PFW News Update: September 2021

Planning New Zealand tourism’s next directions: Where to after Delta? Update - Spring 2021

Our government, while currently sticking to its elimination strategy, is now focussing on vaccination as the way forward for recovering everyday freedoms in Aotearoa New Zealand. The freedom to travel and move around – whether for work, education, medical appointments, entertainment or a holiday – is dependent on vaccination rates being as high as possible. Countries already permitting tourism again have turned to ‘vaccination passports’ of various kinds, and they are also being used increasingly to encourage, or require, vaccination rates in work and other domestic settings. A similar concept is being developed here.

 “A vaccine passport is coming. New Zealanders will soon have access to digital proof that they’ve received a Covid-19 vaccination. Colloquially known as a ‘vaccine passport’, a government-run app will soon be as indispensable as a real passport for international travel. Many countries already require them to sit at a bar or attend a sports game. You can’t climb the Eiffel Tower without one. … Air New Zealand and Qantas have both announced that they’ll eventually require vaccine passports. Proof of vaccination is already a condition of entry for a number of countries around the world. Just as you can’t board many international flights now without the right visa, the vaccine passport will be added to your pre-flight checklist.”  – The Spinoff, September 7 2021

Meanwhile, many NZ businesses that formerly relied on a high number of tourists, both domestic and international, are realising that pre-COVID tourism levels, and styles, are not going to be restored any time soon. The NZ Ministry of Tourism announced in 2020 that the COVID-enforced break in tourism here had provided an opportunity for a ‘reset’ of tourism, both for a more sustainable future – for visitors to and residents of tourist ‘hot spots’ alike – and to reduce economic reliance on an industry that relied on NZ having international borders open to visitors. 

“The reality is that we have a responsibility to take an intergenerational view of the role of tourism in New Zealand”, Tourism Minister Nash said in March. “It can’t go back to how it was. Unsustainable tourism levels put far too much undue pressure on communities and our natural attractions and many communities have struggled to absorb.”

Recent New Zealand studies and reports have identified widespread overtourism impacts in New Zealand, especially on small communities. Late last year, Professor Andrea Insch, at the University of Otago Business School, summarised the various studies describing ‘overtourism’ in NZ, in an article published in the Journal of Destination Marketing and Management: “Over-tourism [relates to] destinations where hosts or guests, locals or visitors, feel that there are too many visitors and that the quality of life in the area or the quality of the experience has deteriorated unacceptably. … the concept of over-tourism also includes the inability of the destination to effectively handle a certain level of tourism activity within a given time, suggesting that each destination has a social and environmental carrying capacity… [so that the] undesirable outcomes of unfettered growth in many destinations demonstrates the need for a sustainable market orientation approach to tourism policy…”

This kind of ‘reset’ is already under way in many tourist destinations, both here and overseas. In the previously overcrowded city of Venice, for example, a turnstile system is mooted that will enable a cap on visitor numbers. At the other end of the spectrum, the tiny island of Niue has decided that an intact marine ecosystem is ultimately of greater value than an exploited one.

Closer to home, Milford Sound is now implementing some measures to protect their natural environment for the future. Under plans announced at the end of July, international visitors will need a permit to go to Milford Sound. The Milford Opportunities Project masterplan recommends the airstrip be closed, cruise ships banned, and a new park-and-ride system operate from a hub in Te Anau.

What about right here on our island? In the past five years, the Waiheke community has raised concerns over increasing problems related to the provision of basic essential services – housing, water security, essential commuter travel for work and medical needs, health services – noting that those problems are often either directly or indirectly attributable in varying degrees to the increases in tourism on the island. Recent studies, including research undertaken by Auckland Council, have demonstrated that Waiheke Island’s natural, built and social/community environments have been negatively impacted by the pre-COVID increases in tourist volumes (Allpress et al, 2018, 2021; Project Forever Waiheke, 2018, 2020) – estimated by Auckland Council as 1.3 million visitors in 2016/2017. 

To get better data on the impacts of tourism, positive and negative, for Waiheke, and an evidence base for what Waiheke residents want future tourism to look like on the island, Project Forever Waiheke conducted a comprehensive programme of research over the past 12 months on the future of tourism and its impacts on the island. Support and collaboration was provided from the Lottery Community Sector Research Fund, the Waiheke Local Board, Waiheke Island Tourism Inc, the Waiheke Resources Trust, and more than 400 Waiheke residents who participated in the various surveys and interviews in 2020 and 2021. A detailed report on the findings and conclusions is available on the PFW website:

‘Waiheke is a community, not a commodity’: Stakeholder perspectives on future Waiheke tourism. Included in the report are examples of how governments and communities are working to avoid or manage overtourism in overseas tourist hot spots, many of which could be adopted or adapted to the Waiheke context. 

The important tasks now – for the Waiheke Local Board and our community working together - are to determine how to find the balance that is the stated goal of the current destination management planning work being undertaken by Stafford Strategy for Auckland Unlimited. Be sure to have your say when the Stafford team distributes its community survey, which is apparently scheduled for some time in September-October.