Mr Nash outlined his vision for the industry at the Tourism Policy School in Queenstown yesterday.
It include four main principles:
- Resetting and rebuilding tourism to be more sustainable, as the industry cannot simply return to business as usual.
- Ensuring Aotearoa is seen as one of the world’s most aspirational travel destinations.
- Recognising that costs and negative impacts associated with tourism must be mitigated or priced into the visitor experience so ratepayers and taxpayers are not bearing the cost of hosting visitors
- More partnership between the government and the tourism industry, including with businesses and workers.
Mr Nash said the industry could not return to the status quo, but that would not mean hard-hit communities would be left behind.
"Regions heavily reliant on international tourism, dare I say it overly reliant on international tourism, should have a range of alternatives, because we don’t want to be in this situation again," he said.
"We all want tourism to transition to more sustainable practices. But we cannot leave people and communities behind. I do recognise that in some areas, it’s not simply about supporting tourism businesses, but ensuring communities survive."
He confirmed there would be a targeted focus on areas where there was a heavy reliance on international tourism, including Queenstown Lakes, South Westland, Fiordland, Mackenzie District and Kaikoura, but did not give further details on support measures.
"We have an opportunity now, while the borders are closed, to reshape tourism so that when we reopen, and international visitors return in meaningful numbers, the sector and our host communities are operating on a more assured model.
"There’s a lot of work to do, but I want to reiterate that we won’t leave our worst-affected communities behind."
Mr Nash pointed out that the Government invested $400 million in tourism recovery alone last year including $299million in cash grants and loans for 130 businesses and $20.2million for the country’s 31 Regional Tourism Organisations.
"I would like to see changes in pricing strategies across our public assets, so that they become financially self-sustaining. I would like this to include a closer look at existing local levies, changes to the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy. I will be working closely with the Minister of Conservation on her approach to pricing for public conservation lands and waters," Mr Nash said.
One of the objectives he outlined was to enable tourism businesses to make hard decisions around their current operations.
"This may require us to help make advice available from those who have deep expertise and experience, in areas like business continuity in times of extreme uncertainty," Mr Nash said.
"This may require steps to make it easier to hibernate or suspend a company, and then provide support when they are ready to start up again.
"This is because we want to then ensure those tourism businesses that do choose a form of suspension don’t face a significant financial burden when gearing up to open once international tourists start arriving."
Hospitality NZ said targeted Government support for the hardest-hit tourism and hospitality regions was a most welcome move that was not before time, as were moves to look at the future structure of the industry.
“The targeted support is wonderful news for Queenstown-Lakes, South Westland, Fiordland, the Mackenzie district, and Kaikoura, because they are hurting tremendously from the tourist downturn,” chief executive Julie White said.
“Stress and fatigue in the sector is becoming an epidemic, and we’ve been asking for something like this for some time. It will go some way to alleviating that."
Mr Nash spent the second day of his trip to Otago and Southland speaking at the tourism policy conference,
before visiting steel fabrication company Queenstown Engineering, in Frankton, and Arrowtown’s Lakes District Museum.
Then he travelled to Cromwell to visit Highlands Motorsport Park and Hector Egger, a prefabricated housing manufacturer.
He visited Invercargill and Te Anau on Thursday.
- Additional reporting RNZ
