Tourism sector lays out its manifesto as election looms
The tourism industry is flexing its political muscle, releasing its own election manifesto and urging tourist business operators and other voters to carefully assess how candidates in the September poll stack against it.
Priority actions for the incoming Government to “supercharge the tourism industry’s success” were unveiled yesterday by Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA) at the industry’s international trade event, Trenz, in Auckland.
The industry, now New Zealand’s biggest export earner, has three priority actions for the incoming Government — ensuring a sustainable industry, investment and support for the industry.
The industry gets the opportunity to lay out these expectations directly to the Government this week.
Tourism Minister Paula Bennett and Conservation Minister Maggie Barry are scheduled to speak at Trenz tomorrow and there are growing expectations that some of the more than $1 billion the Government takes in GST will be invested in infrastructure and helping the Department of Conservation ( DoC) cope with pressure on national parks.
In the past year about $17 million has been earmarked for infrastructure in small centres over four years and that figure was publicly welcomed as a good start but privately spoken of by the industry as underwhelming.
Bennett has said there will be help for small communities struggling to build toilet blocks and car parks for the record number of tourists but she has been careful to temper expectations of a big spend up.
In the document released yesterday, TIA chief executive Chris Roberts said the industry would work to increase the value of tourism who- ever is in charge of the treasury benches post-election.
“Our Tourism 2025 goal is to build an industry that is socially, environmentally and economically sustainable. We can do this with political and policy recognition, backed by a supportive environment for infrastructure investment.”
TIA worked with business intelligence provider Marketview to calculate how much international and domestic visitors spent in each electorate in 2016.
The figures, drawn from electronic card spend, offered insights into how widely the tourism dollar was distributed around the entire country.
In Auckland Central more than $2.5b is spent, while in CluthaSouthland, which includes Queenstown, $2.49b is spent.
Roberts said all electorates benefited from tourism spending.
“While we recognise that the current tourism boom is placing pressure on some places, this insight clearly demonstrates the value our visitors bring,” he said.
TIA will use the manifesto to promote the value of tourism to MPs, election candidates and the voting public in the run-up to the September 23 election, Roberts said.
Tourism operators will be encouraged to discuss the manifesto priorities with their local candidates.
Roberts said TIA also wanted the tourism portfolio to continue to be held by a senior front-bench minister to reflect the industry’s importance to growing New Zealand’s economy.
Bennett is Deputy Prime Minister, and former Prime Minister John Key filled the the tourism role before her.