More Kiwis getting tetchy over tourists

Concern about the number of international visitors is growing, with almost one in five Kiwis surveyed saying New Zealand is attracting too many tourists – up from 13 per cent from a year ago.

Local government tourism consultant David Hammond believes it indicates growing tetchiness about the impact of hosting 3.4 million overseas tourists last year.

‘‘New Zealanders are showing signs of widespread visitor fatigue on the back of a horror summer in 2015 where the country faced the perfect storm of record visitor numbers which cruelly exposed a tourism infrastructure gap – things like toilets, rubbish facilities and adequate carparking,’’ Hammond said.

The Mood of the Nation survey, carried out every six months by Tourism Industry Aotearoa (TIA) and Tourism New Zealand, said the feeling about the booming visitor numbers was mostly positive.

Business opportunities and economic growth were considered the main benefits of international tourism and more than a quarter of those surveyed believed we could handle more visitors.

However, almost 20 per cent worried New Zealand was attracting too many tourists, with road accidents and traffic congestion their top concerns.

But Hammond describes the research results as being of little value. They were based on a November survey of 521 people which TIA said was weighted by gender, age and region to be broadly representative of the population. The vast majority of those surveyed were in the main centres – Auckland (81), Wellington (81), Christchurch (80), Rotorua (48) and Queenstown (54). The remainder were spread around the country.

Hammond argued this failed to properly measure the sentiment in lower population areas where visitor numbers have exploded.