Charging those using services way to deal with tourism
LET’S clean up our act!
Freedom camping is not free. We really need to come clean about the costs and who should pay them.
Tourist levies are being hailed as the answer, but if the Government collects a tax, there is no reason it will spend it appropriately (think petrol taxes, cigarette taxes).
And if local authorities use ratepayers’ money they are likely to spend it on more free stuff for more tourists using local rates, including from those who are trying to make a living from holiday parks etc.
The issues with tourist numbers concern toilets, rubbish, ablutions, parking and, on a personal level, WiFi.
We should look at each of these and figure out who should pay.
Let’s start with more toilets, better kept. This is one thing, arguably the most important thing, that Australia has contributed to the world.
Wherever you go in Australia there are toilets for regularity at regular intervals. More toilets in New Zealand would benefit everyone, so need not be seen as a particularly tourist issue.
But for those on tourist routes this would make all of our environment cleaner, especially if we also have regularly emptied rubbish bins everywhere as well.
For ablution issues we could provide more showers close to where people are likely to overnight when they are so called freedom camping, and especially at regular intervals along the main tourist routes. There is no reason for these to be free, and a fee can easily be charged for them.
There need to be places for selfcontained vehicles to park overnight, which do not need to be at at prime parking areas or the best beaches.
Again, there is no reason not to charge a fee.
The costly issues which are inappropriate to charge directly for are the installation of more toilets and more rubbish collection.
If each territorial authority worked out how many more toilets and rubbish collections it needs and how it could reasonably share that cost between tourists and locals, then it could apply for part of a tourist levy to deal with the cost.
If we use ratepayers’ money for supporting free showers and free parking, (and recently in Wanaka the Queenstown Lakes District Council is providing free WiFi and a free dumping station) all we are doing is using the rates of people who are trying to make a living from tourists in holiday parks to compete against them.
This is a really mean and unprincipled thing to do with the rates of these businesses.
It is also unfair to levy all tourists for using facilities that those who stay in paid accommodation have already paid for.
The fair way to deal with the issues increased tourism bring is to charge the costs more on those using the services.
We already charge people who want to walk our great walks. Other countries charge tourists.
Venice is currently considering adding to its general tourism rates a levy for daytrippers who are overwhelming its resources.
We could provide good value for money from any tourism levy we take by providing an app to tell travellers where the nearest toilet and shower facilities and overnight parking is to be found, and also the cheapest way of accessing the internet roaming around New Zealand.
That way tourists who want to camp can plan their journeys and make sure they find somewhere to stop where there are facilities.
It isn’t that tourism levies are a bad idea. But the idea of starting with a levy and then expecting the Government to fairly take it and apply it is likely to end in just another unfocused government tax and still not enough toilets.
Charging for parking would discourage councils from such weird ideas as providing prime midtown parking to campers, pretending that somehow the campers will vacate these parks in time for Dunedin commuters to make use of them.
Charging for the facilities which are properly a cost to those using them allows them to be built where they are required, responding to demand, rather than on an ad hoc basis depending on whether a local council has some spare money to give away.
If we really do have ‘‘freedom campers’’ who are unwilling to pay the minimal charge made by commercial campsites, starting at around $20 per person per night, or the cost of parking near where they would like to be, or the cost of a shower, why should they be allowed to roam our part of the world under the illusion that services here are free? — hcalvert@xtra.co.nz