‘We can’t afford tourists’: Government’s ‘grow agenda’ could hurt ratepayers

Tuesday, 4 February 2025

Tourists are having a big impact in the Mackenzie District, especially at Lake Takapō/Tekapo, where the Church of the Good Shepherd is a particular drawcard.

A Canterbury council in one of New Zealand’s tourism hot spots is concerned the Government’s “grow agenda” of boosting tourist numbers will be to the detriment of its ratepayers.

There is also concern that the Government will spend the international visitor levy on marketing instead of the “grassroots purpose” of easing pressure on local communities.

The Mackenzie District – home to national taonga Aoraki/Mt Cook and visitor drawcards like the Church of the Good Shepherd – is already seeing pre-Covid numbers of tourists, and its infrastructure is not keeping up.

The only solution was for New Zealand to ditch its “hostess with the mostest” mentality and be more strategic, says Karen Morgan, the district’s acting mayor.

Mackenzie District leaders worry about the impact of tourist numbers on Takapō/Tekapo, where the wastewater network is groaning under the weight of visitors.

“We haven’t got the cheque book.”

Morgan, who represents the Twizel region, said in Takapō/Tekapo alone – which has a population of about 720 permanent residents – the demand on the wastewater network was 15 times that of the local population.

The township, one of the district’s key attractions, requires a $47 million wastewater network upgrade to keep up.

Morgan said the council would delay work for as long as they could to find alternative funding – it wants the Government to help – but would be forced to get started if tourism numbers continue to increase.

The council already charges users for some public toilets in Tekapo, and is working with tourism operators on how they could charge tourists, not locals, to access other public facilities.

But the council believed there were ways central government could ease the pressure.

There are calls for the Government to use the international visitor levy at a grassroots level to ease pressure, rather than for things like marketing.

In October, the Government increased the international visitor levy from $35 to $100. Lydia Stoddart, the council’s head of tourism, said the authority was yet to find out how that extra money would be spent and if infrastructure projects would be eligible.

“We can’t afford to service tourists [alone],” she said.

She was concerned the Government would invest the levy into attracting visitors, based on the “rhetoric” from a recent statement by Finance Minister Nicola Willis, Immigration Minister Erica Stanford and the new tourism minister Louise Upston about “going for growth”.

Mackenzie District acting mayor Karen Morgan says the local council cannot afford to service tourists alone.

In the statement, the ministers announced the Government was relaxing visitor visa requirements to allow tourists to work remotely, making it more attractive to “digital nomads” and boosting an industry which generated almost $11 billion in revenue.

International visitor arrivals were at 84% of 2019, something Willis said represented “a hole in the pocket of many Kiwis”. But based on electronic card transaction data held by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, tourists spent more money in 2024 than in 2019 in the vast majority of districts.

If the levy was used for this “grow agenda”, then it would only grow the problem the levy was created to ease, Stoddart said.

She said since the levy’s inception in 2019 - with the money typically split between funding conservation and tourism activities - nothing had trickled down to the MacKenzie District Council for infrastructure.

The Government needed to get back to the “grassroots purpose” of the levy, Stoddart said.

Upston said the Cabinet had not made any decisions on an accommodation levy, or bed tax.

“As the new Tourism and Hospitality Minister, I’m listening to the ideas that local communities and industry representatives have for attracting more visitors to our towns and cities, as well as any longer-term challenges they see.

“My immediate focus is on getting more tourists to visit New Zealand to power up our economic growth and I’m open to what solutions might look like.

Another help would be to create new types of “place-based levies”, like changing legislation to allow for a “bed tax” - which could see more charged for accommodation, so that a portion could go back to the councils to maintain and upgrade local roads, wastewater and other infrastructure, Stoddart said.

MP Matt Doocey, who was tourism minister until January 19, was understood to have been working on such a policy. However, Upston told The Press last week that while she was open to the idea, it was not a priority.

Stoddart said the Government alone was not expected to find answers, but local solutions would not suffice.