DOC told to provide relief
Conservation officials were given until yesterday to say how they could stop charging struggling tourism businesses fees.
Tourism operators say the Department of Conservation (DOC) is pushing them out of business with its refusal to back down on concession payments.
Of the 1034 recreation and tourism firms paying fees, leases and licences to use public land, 122 have asked for relief from annual concessions, worth $27.2 million.
All have been rejected so far but Conservation Minister Eugenie Sage said she asked the department to look at ways to waive the fees while borders are closed.
Tourism companies were under pressure but large companies wanting previous years’ concession fees waived often had sizeable reserves, she said.
‘‘It is a privilege to operate on public conservation land and the revenue they pay gets invested back into facilities. DOC would have to find that money elsewhere.’’
DOC’s fee structure for most tourism-related concessions is based on a per-person rate or percentage of earnings. So if a business was not operating or had few clients, it would pay nothing or very little to DOC, she said.
But concessionaires, many of whom are reluctant to speak out against the department, say that viewpoint is hypocritical and.
Wiping concessions would have been ‘‘a sign of absolute good faith,’’ said Milford Sound Tourism Board chairman Roger Wilson.
In the last financial year to March 2019 Milford Sound Tourism paid $4m – the largest concession of any business in New Zealand.
It had asked DOC for relief from the latest year’s concession costs and a reduction in fees for the new financial year. The only relief offered was a delay in paying last year’s fee, Wilson said.
Meeting the obligations would be difficult with a 90 per cent decrease in turnover and a reliance on domestic tourists who were looking for cut-price deals, he said.
‘‘There’s a real high level of frustration by all those doing business with DOC and the fact that we’re still paying what we used to pay.’’