Kiwis are more worried than Aussies about the negative impact of international tourists

Thursday, 2 November 2017

As our biggest exporter earner, tourism directly employs almost 200,000 people, but there is a down side too.

More than 40 per cent of New Zealanders believe international visitors are putting too much pressure on their country, compared with just a quarter of Australians.

And it's not just foreigners we're worried about - one in five believe domestic visitors are having an adverse impact in some places.

Holiday weekends can lead to big traffic snarl-ups and New Zealanders are concerned about the impact of domestic visitors as well as internationals.

That's according to a new survey by research company Angus and Associates which surveyed 1200 travellers - 600 from each country.

Although the vast majority of all respondents agreed international tourism was good for their countries, but there was a marked difference when it came to the negative impact.

Forty-four per cent of Kiwis said international visitors were putting too much pressure on the country as a whole, while 30 per cent said the same about their home region - compared with 24 per cent and 20 per cent of Australians polled on the same questions.

* Kiwis tetchier about tourists

* NZ ill-equipped for 5 million overseas visitors**

Angus and Associates managing director Cristine Angus said it was important that efforts to mitigate the impact of tourism were continued to maintain community support for the industry.

'Taken together, these findings suggest that, while New Zealanders appreciate the value of inbound tourism, and welcome international visitors in the spirit of manaakitanga (hospitality), tourism's social licence may be tested by further international growth.'

New Zealanders negativity about tourism is higher than that revealed in the industry's March 'mood of the nation' industry survey where it sat at 35 per cent.

The Angus research said Australians did not appear to discriminate between inbound and domestic tourism.

However, Kiwis were much more likely to attribute adverse impacts to overseas visitors, but about a fifth believed that domestic visitors were also having something of an impact.

Within New Zealand concern about tourism pressure on the regions was more common amongst residents from certain areas and ranged from as low as 11 per cent to as high as 42 per cent.

Angus said the attitudinal difference between the two countries may be influenced by the fact that inbound tourism per capita was higher in New Zealand.

New Zealand has about 70m international visitor nights a year for a population of 4.8m (15 visitor nights per capita), compared with Australia's 266m international visitor nights for a population of 24.7m (11 visitor nights per capita).

Angus said they planned to repeat the survey quarterly, gathering feedback from 2400 New Zealanders annually.

'It's important that we delve into it a bit further so we can really understand why people are making those comments, and the industry can address those points.'