How adventure tourism safety was made a private affair

Friday, 20 December 2019

ANALYSIS: Adventure tourism safety regulation is a private affair.

Following 37 tourist deaths in the four years before 2009, and a heartfelt plea from a bereaved British father, then prime minister, and tourism minister, Sir John Key, ordered an overhaul of adventure tourism safety.

The result was private adventure tourism companies paying private auditing companies to conduct the safety audits they needed to stay in business.

Audit reports were private, not public documents. Adventure tourism companies' 'emergency preparedness and response plans' only had to be available to tourists who knew to ask for them.

Auditors were not allocated randomly to adventure companies. Adventure companies decided who would audit them.

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This private safety net for adventure tourism is overseen by safety regulator Worksafe, which is now conducting an investigation into the 18 deaths, and multiple serious injuries caused when Whgakaari/White Island erupted at 2.11pm on December 9.

But an independent inquiry looks likely, with opposition leader Simon Bridges calling it inevitable.

New Zealand's long-standing practice after events causing multiple deaths is to hold an independent inquiry, and happened after each of the country's non-wartime biggest man-made disasters, including the 2012 Carterton balloon crash (11 deaths), the 2010 Pike River Mine explosion (29 deaths), , the 1979 Mount Erebus crash (257 deaths), the 1968 sinking of the Wahine (51 deaths), the 1953 Tangiwai train crash (151 deaths), and the 1947 Ballantyne's fire (41 deaths).

PROTECTING THE GOLDEN GOOSE

'There are some questions about whether the current regime is fit for purpose,' associate head of AUT's New Zealand Tourism Research Institute Simon Milne said.

The families of the people who died need answers, but so does New Zealand's tourism industry, which needs properly-functioning safety regulation to protect its future, Milne said

'In a sense it's what stops us from killing the goose that laid the golden egg,' Milne said.

LIFTING STANDARDS

Despite the massive loss of life on White Island, across the sector, safety standards appeared to have improved, a 2016 review of adventure tourism auditing revealed, though it also highlighted shortcomings too.

Experts examined 300 audit reports, and it seems likely White Island Tours, which had tourists and staff on White Island at the time of the eruption, was among them.

At least one audit involved a company that specialised in 'volcano travel'. On Worksafe's Adventure Tourism register White Island Tours' 'Walking on a Live Volcano' is the only volcano activity.

The report, done for Worksafe, found auditors identified a total of 3484 'non-conformities' with the Worksafe safety standards for adventure tourism operations, of which 21 per cent were 'major non-conformities'.

There were 71 major issues with emergency preparedness plans, and in 67 cases, auditors found adventure tourism staff who were not fully competent.

In 49 cases there were major issues with companies failing to take all practicable steps to keep staff and tourists safe from the risks posed by a 'significant hazard'.

These were the kinds of issues auditing was supposed to pick up. Once identified, companies could address them, become safer, and then pass the audit so they could be registered to stay in the adventure tourism business.

Many adventure tourism operations were grudgingly happy. They got value from the audits. Some expressed satisfaction in seeing 'fly-by-night' operators disappear.

WHITE ISLAND TOURS

But questions are now being asked about the efficacy of the audits for Ngāti Awa-owned White Island Tours by private company AdventureMark, which is one of just three privately-owned companies certified to do adventure tourism audits.

How was White Island Tours taking tourists to the island on days when vulcanologists from government agency GNS had banned their own scientists from going?

How was it possible for White Island Tours website to say: 'The safety gear we provide (hard hat and gas mask) is of adult sizing and therefore doesn't always fit to a child's head', when the Worksafe audit standards stipulated clothing and equipment had to be 'suitable for the nature of the activity and any associated hazards (and) a suitable size, fit and reasonably comfortable for staff and participants'?

Safety clothing was identified in the 2016 as being a common area in which companies failed.

The audit standards also stipulate adequate first aid supplies must be available at adventure activity sites, and that emergency preparedness and response plans must be made available to people taking part in adventure tourism activities.

White Island Tours emergency preparedness plans do not appear to have been published on its website.

Worksafe would not comment while its investigation was underway, and White Island Tours did not respond to questions, or a request for a copy of its audit and emergency plans.

AdventureMark managing director Hemi Morete would only answer general questions.

'A lot of those sorts of questions will be asked, and answered in the inquiry. Sorry, I don't mean to sound like a politician,' Morete said.

'It's a terrible tragedy, and any investigation, you would hope, would ensure any shortcomings there are are addressed.'

LIFTING SECRECY

Key's reforms did not stress public transparency.

There was no requirement to publish audit reports, or a specific requirement for companies to put their emergency plans on their websites.

The 2016 report noted 17 cases where there was a failure to make available emergency preparedness and response plans.

Milne says the report recommended greater transparency, including the auditors and adventure tourism companies seeking methods to 'encourage the sharing of certification' with their clients.

That recommendation was opposed by the Tourism Industry Association (TIA), which feared doing so might make tourists 'unnecessarily' question the safety of adventure tourism.

Greater public visibility for adventure tourism emergency plans and audits could help incentivise higher standards, Milne said.

It might also have made clearer to tourists the risks they were taking, he says.

'We are a developed country with law and order, with a very safe travel environment for visitors, so it is quite likely people are lulled into a false sense of security,' Milne says.

'From my perspective, we are honour-bound to give people a clear sense of what the risks are,' he says.

GAPS IN THE SYSTEM

There appear to be gaps in the system, Milne says.

The report revealed resentment among registered companies that other operators, who should have been registered, weren't.

Given the costs of an audit of $3000 to $9000, that angered some operators, he says.

'There are kitesurf schools out there who are teaching unsafe practices, who are not wearing basic safety equipment like buoyancy aids and helmets, and who are passing an audit. The system is not achieving what it is set out to in terms of reducing risk, and maximising safety,' one operator says anonymously in the report.

Other activities not usually subject to registration were tramping/bush craft, horse trek/riding, archery, hunting and fishing, the report says.

The Worksafe auditing standards, on occasion, allows for adventure tourism companies to self-declare they are maintaining high safety standards in between their full three-yearly audits.

The report recommended this be abolished, which TIA opposed.

'On-site visits during surveillance audits should be the exception rather than the rule and should only occur if triggered by a risk that the SMS will not meet the requirements of the audit standard,' TIA said at the time.

WAS WORKSAFE TOUGH ENOUGH?

After the December 9 eruption, it was revealed that three helicopter companies flying to White Island were told by Worksafe two years ago they should be registered as adventure operators.

Worksafe says it had repeatedly tried to get them to comply with the Adventure Activity Regulations, and just weeks before the fatal eruption had again told the companies they should be registered, though they say they have legal advice they do not have to.

Milen says: 'There were obviously operators bringing people to the island and providing guiding experiences who were not registered.'

In 2014, the year where registration became compulsory, Key had promised a tough Worksafe, which would fine unregistered operators until they went out of business.

'If you don't comply we will close you down,' Key told tourism businesses at the TIA summit in Wellington.

'There is a big $2000 fine that applies on a daily basis and we will expect them (WorkSafe) to keep fining people, because it will be extremely messy for all of us if there's a death undertaken by an operator who's not certified.'

Milne says: 'If we are talking about a system where people could, in effect, opt out, or say they weren't covered, we need to have a system to disincentivise them from not doing that.'

WHAT WILL CHANGE?

There's always risk in adventure tourism, Milne says.

But the country now also has to ask whether Worksafe should prevent some adventure tourism risks from being taken because they could end in catastrophe.

Chris Jordan, the British father whose letter to Key prompted the overhaul of safety, says there was a level of danger the government should simply not allow private businesses and tourists to take.

As well as reviewing whether safety regulations are fit for purpose, Jordan says New Zealand must ask whether to create no-go areas for tourists.

'Is the Tongariro Crossing at risk?' Morete says. 'What about the ski fields on Ruapeheu?'

Milen says: 'This is a really important set of issues, and this is going to open up a significant can of worms, but in a positive way.'