Prime Minister John Key remains committed to improving safety in the adventure tourism industry and his Government will consider recommendations made by the coroner investigating the Fox Glacier tragedy.
A spokeswoman for Mr Key yesterday said the Prime Minister continued his "personal commitment" to ensure tourists to New Zealand did not face unnecessary risks.
The industry's reputation has taken a battering in recent years, with questions over the quality of safety standards and cannabis links to people involved in both the Fox Glacier and Carterton balloon tragedies, which together claimed 20 lives.
The revelations that the pilot of the Carterton hot air balloon had cannabis in his system and so too did two skydive masters in the Fox Glacier crash has prompted the Government to consider mandatory drug testing in the tourism industry.
Mr Key last year announced new regulations requiring tourism providers to have stronger processes for dealing with drug and alcohol use.
His spokeswoman yesterday signalled the Prime Minister intended to continue putting pressure on the sector.
She said issues raised in the coroner's finding were being considered by the Ministry of Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority.
"It is the Prime Minister's understanding that the Minister of Transport is expecting a report on these recommendations in coming weeks," the spokeswoman said.
Skydive Fox Glacier director Mark Horning said he hoped the reputation of the adventure tourism industry would be partially repaired by the release of the coroner's finding.
He said the ruling that the cause of the 2010 tragedy was unlikely to ever be "fully understood" showed the crash was an accident.
"This is what happens with accidents unfortunately. Sometimes you don't know exactly what happened," Mr Horning said.
"Accidents are made up of a whole series of events. It's never one thing."
Mr Horning, who took over the skydiving operations at Fox Glacier about two years ago, said after the inquest finished hearing evidence the families of two of the overseas victims visited the scene where their loved ones died.
Mr Horning said a number of the family members, after hearing the inquest evidence, believed "it wasn't just negligence [but] that it was an accident".
"Obviously they were very moved [to see the memorial] and we did all we could to facilitate them," he said.
"Obviously people are very emotionally invested in this. Their first reaction is to throw their hands up in the air and want someone to be lynched. And that's completely understandable."
