TIA Chief Executive Chris Roberts
More visitor accommodation is the highest priority infrastructure needed to support the future growth of New Zealand’s booming tourism industry, new research has found.
Development of new accommodation would generate more additional tourism impact for New Zealand than any other category of infrastructure, according to the research carried out by Deloitte for Tourism Industry Aotearoa.
The other priority infrastructure types identified by TIA’s National Tourism Infrastructure Assessment are telecommunications, airport facilities, road transport, car parking, toilets, and water and sewerage systems.
The Assessment finds that the tourism industry will need to work closely with central and local government to achieve the required development to close these infrastructure gaps as market forces alone are unlikely to be sufficient.
TIA Chief Executive Chris Roberts says coordinated actions will be required.
“We need smart and active interventions to ensure tourism growth is sustainable, that the industry keeps growing its contribution to New Zealand’s economy and reaches its Tourism 2025 goal of $41 billion annual revenue,” Mr Roberts says.
“The tourism boom is putting pressure on some of our most popular destinations. We need to address this as a country, otherwise we won’t be able to keep growing, the visitor experience could suffer and we’ll lose community support for tourism.”
TIA identified that there was a need for solid evidence on the current state of tourism infrastructure, the desired future state, and where coordinated action needs to be taken to close any gaps.
Supported by a number of industry partners, TIA commissioned Deloitte to undertake the comprehensive National Tourism Infrastructure Assessment.
Surveys, interviews and various data sources were used to assess 20 categories of infrastructure across 31 regions.
