A better plan to focus on improved visitor experiences

CORPORATE greed is driving Air New Zealand’s push for a new airport in Central Otago, as outlined in your lead article (ODT, 2.10.18).

It will not have given a thought as to how this would affect local people. Its request to extend the noise boundary around the Queenstown area is proof of that.

A related article noted that the proposed extended noise boundary would allow passenger movements to increase from 2.05 million to 5.1 million. Do we really want our communities overtaken by such numbers?

A recent Time magazine had as its cover story ‘‘The Tourism Trap’’. It talked of how European countries in particular, having actively promoted tourism to raise money, didn’t think about the repercussions of what they were doing.

Europe has now been swamped by ever increasing numbers of tourists, which is making life miserable for residents and efforts are now being taken to stem the tide.

These efforts vary from country to country and from city to city but include imposing taxes on tourists, prohibiting the construction of new hotels in city centres, restricting times tour groups can be at certain places and actively limiting the number of visitors.

Are we not in a position to learn from this? We are already struggling to catch up with the numbers we have, let alone the predicted rise over the next 30 years.

Why do we want to build more airports to bring in ever increasing numbers of tourists? Why not focus on giving the numbers already coming here an even better experience than they are having now, in a way that also protects the rights of residents to enjoy their own neighbourhood.

Ann Rutherford

Alexandra ...................................