A stoush is brewing on the South Island's West Coast over who should be responsible for promoting tourism in the region.
Tourism West Coast currently does the marketing in the region, where last year visitor spending brought in more than $500 million to the local economy.
It's partly funded by the West Coast's three district councils but majority funded by Development West Coast, a government funded trust set up to spur economic growth.
This week Development West Coast wrote to the three district mayors, signalling its intention to take over Tourism West Coast.
That has concerned Tourism West Coast's chairman Richard Benton, who in a letter to tourism operators said the Board questioned the expertise and track record of Development West Coast to operate successfully in a very competitive marketplace.
"The Board is also pondering the reasons why Development West Coast would want to now change a winning tourism formula given our strong performance to date.
"To hand this success over to an organisation that is still working through its own structural changes and with little practicable tourism experience could be judged as fraught with risk," he said.
Mr Benton said the growth of tourism on the West Coast had not happened by accident but had been as a direct result of a great deal of hard work by local operators, regional and national partnerships and joint ventures with vision and strategies by the executive team.
He asked concerned operators to lobby their locals mayor and councillors in the West Coast, who would discuss the proposal at their next council meetings, held later this month.
Buller District mayor Garry Howard said there would need to be sign off from all three district councils to disband TWC and his council was seeking more detail from DWC about it's proposal before making a decision.
"The board of Tourism West Coast have actually been doing a very good job over the last two years and we're quite keen to ensure that some of those expertise are retained within this particular proposal."
Mr Howard said the decision about whether to allow Development West Coast to take on the role of marketing West Coast tourism was an important one for councils in the region to make.
"It's one of our big industries on the West Coast and it is a big decision about how we market, who is [doing the] marketing and presenting the West Coast to not only domestic New Zealand, but internationally."
At the 2017 New Zealand Tourism Awards, Tourism West Coast won the Industry Alignment Award.
The judges said TWC was a fantastic example of industry alignment that had helped drive up annual visitor spending on the West Coast by 12 percent to $522 million.
Development West Coast chief executive Chris Mackenzie said the changes would not be a "take-over," but was about bringing TWC into a delivery group that concentrated on the total West Coast economy.
He said this concept had been put forward in a regional growth study, commissioned by the previous government.
"We don't want to see any change in Tourism West Coast, in fact by doing what is proposed TWC actually ends up with the possibility of doing more than it does at the moment, but it also integrates tourism with the rest of the economy," he said.
Mr Mackenzie said while governance arrangements would have to be sorted out, TWC staff would continue to do what they were currently doing.
