The Government review of
safety in the $3.5 billion adventure tourism and outdoor
commercial sector understated the extent of the problem, a
safety specialist who contributed research data to the report
said.
Prof Tim Bentley, Massey University School of Management's
healthy work group director, said the figures on serious harm
or injury incidents included in the report were low because
many injuries went unreported.
The review was requested by Prime Minister John Key after he
received a letter from Chris Jordan, the father of Emily
Jordan (21) who drowned in the Kawarau River in April 2008
while on an excursion with Mad Dog River Boarding.
The 95-page report, compiled by Labour Minister Kate
Wilkinson, found industry-wide safety inconsistencies.
Prof Bentley said he had studied adventure tourism industry
injuries for 10 years and many injuries to overseas visitors
were "never reported to official bodies such as the
Department of Labour".
His latest paper, "A decade of injury monitoring in the New
Zealand adventure tourism industry", was published in the
journal Tourism Management and supplied to department staff
carrying out the review.
One of the recommendations from the report, for a
comprehensive injury-monitoring system, was something he had
been advocating "for many years".
"We need a single body to collect and collate the
information, and this system should include reporting near
misses, as well.
"If you want to do something about a problem, you need to
understand it."
The report did reflect the "many injuries" in certain areas
of adventure tourism, for example horse riding (40 in the
five years from July 1, 2004) and quad biking (26 for the
same period). It was where "you can't control behaviour of
participants that there is a bigger problem", he said.
"With bungy, you can control behaviour minutely and control
the technology and activity location, but with something like
mountain biking or horse riding, there is far less control.
This is where we have to better manage the organisation of
activities and build a safety culture."
Prof Bentley said registration should be mandatory for all
operators in the adventure tourism industry, regardless of
the risk profile of the activity.
"We need to see how far-reaching the registration they are
suggesting is, because it is not clear at the moment."
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