Packing them in

New Zealand's snowballing tourism industry has implications far and wide, writes Shane Gilchrist.

Daniel Grubb says he has been described by previous visitors as Dunedin's big friendly giant. Standing 2m tall,  Grubb lends further credence to the comparison to one of Roald Dahl's better known characters by striding forward, arms outstretched.Possessing a span of limbs similar to that of a Taiaroa Head royal albatross, Grubb is not shy. End result: the biggest of hugs, followed by a pat on the back that could well do wonders for international relations.

He and wife Kirsty have managed Dunedin Holiday Park and Motel for the past 11 years. Along with owners Rex and Gaynor Moss (Kirsty's parents), who bought the holiday park from  the Dunedin City Council in 1999, they have survived the global financial crisis of 2007-08 and a few lean years afterwards.

• Gearing up for growth

A stone's throw from St Kilda Beach, the site accommodates up to 700 people (spillover capacity enabled 2500 to stay per night during the 2011 Rugby World Cup) and  employs up to 17 in peak season. Many of the guests, be they international or domestic tourists, are independent travellers. Which means a noon visit offers the illusion that Grubb and co aren't busy.

''They'll be out looking at penguins and so on. You might come here during the day and think it's pretty quiet. But at night you'd think, `gee, look at all these people'.''

Indeed.

According to Statistics New Zealand figures for the year ending August 2016, visitor arrivals hit a record 3.36 million, up 11% from the previous year. Mainly driven by visitors from China and Australia, growth between 2014 and 2015 was roughly the same.

Figures released this week by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment show overall tourism (domestic and international) has grown 7% this year compared to last. Significantly, Wanaka (19%), Queenstown (15.1%) and Fiordland (13.3%) were the three fastest growing destinations of 32 listed. Central Otago (9.1%) was fifth-equal with Auckland (behind Nelson-Tasman), Waitaki (4.8%) was 17th, Dunedin (4.3%) was 20th; however, figures for Southland (-1.6%) and Clutha (-3.7%) were less healthy.

By 2022, Tourism New Zealand expects visitor arrivals to top 4.5 million, up from 3.1 million in 2015. Given the past two years have eclipsed Tourism NZ's 5-6% per annum growth projections, that figure could go north.

These numbers encompass those who choose to visit our cities, our rural areas and our back-country wilderness. In regards to the latter, almost half of all arrivals come to New Zealand primarily to experience nature. A recent presentation within the Department of Conservation, released to the Otago Daily Times,  shows the department predicts New Zealand will attract 5.4 million international visitors per year by 2025; of those, 2.7 million will head to our natural places. The number of international and domestic tourists enjoying our Great Walks has increased 78.6% in the past decade: 65,725 in 2006-07, compared to 117,400 in 2015-16, according to Doc statistics.

Notably, visits to Abel Tasman National Park have risen by almost 13,000 in the past decade, while numbers experiencing the Tongariro Crossing and Rakiura (Stewart Island) have each increased by roughly 3000 over the past four years.

There is  a flow-on effect to other (non-Great Walk) tracks, although  there is less hard data there. Some tourists are under time constraints and  focus on a pipeline that, typically, encompasses Auckland, Rotorua, Taupo, Christchurch, the West Coast, Queenstown and Milford Sound. But that pipeline is spilling over. Take the Hooker Track, a three-hour walk that now attracts close to 300,000 people a year to Mt Cook/Aoraki National Park. Yet a key tenet of the New Zealand Tourism Strategy is to spread the load from peak times (it has marketing campaigns aimed across seasons); the strategy also aims to disperse visitors from hot spots such as Queenstown, the West Coast, the Bay of Islands and Rotorua to less well-known areas. As a result, we can expect to see more tourists, in more places, more of the time.

• Concerns about the strain such growth puts on our national parks prompted the Otago and Southland conservation boards to convene a one-day summit in Queenstown late last month to hear a diverse range of views on how best to manage all these visitors, as well as to ask whether limits have already been reached.

Coincidentally, Lou Sanson, director-general of the Department of Conservation, attended a Queenstown Chamber of Commerce breakfast the same day, during which he raised a key point: tourism growth could be a threat to the enjoyment of New Zealand's natural environment.

In March, he took the United States ambassador to the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, a 19.4km one-day trek on the North Island's Central Plateau.

''Every time we stopped, we were surrounded by 40 people. That is not my New Zealand. We have  to work this stuff out. These are the real challenges,'' Sanson said in an Otago Daily Times interview.

He suggested investigating the merits of differential charges on our Great Walks to alleviate the pressure of numbers. For example, international visitors might pay $100, and New Zealand residents $40. However, under current legislation, Doc is unable to cap numbers or charge people for anything other than the use of facilities.Pat Garden, chairman of the Otago Conservation Board, says the recent Queenstown summit included representatives from local runanga, major tourism operators, the Civil Aviation Authority, Milford Development Authority, district councils, Federated Mountain Clubs, NZ Alpine Club branches, Fish & Game, Tourism Export Council as well as senior managers and planners from the Department of Conservation.

Despite the range of agencies involved, there was ''general consensus'' that the rapid rise in tourism (including domestic ''visitors'') required mitigating strategies.

''There are obvious tensions around an unlimited expansion of visitors into the national parks between tourism operators and other users,'' Garden noted, adding the issue of increased flights within the Doc estate was among the topics discussed.

''There was a commitment from both Federated Mountain Clubs and aircraft operators to work with Ngai Tahu ... to find a solution to the issue.''

(Earlier this year, documents obtained under the Official Information Act revealed Doc and the aviation industry held closed-door meetings in a bid to significantly increase helicopter landings on the Ngapunatoru

Ice Plateau, on Mt Tutoko  in Fiordland National Park. Despite a Doc management plan allowing only 10 per day, landings had been increased to up to 80.)The Queenstown summit also prompted discussion  on applying one management plan for the whole of the area known as Te Wahipounamu,  which is a World Heritage area encompassing four national parks (Aoraki/Mt Cook, Westland Tai Poutini, Mt Aspiring and Fiordland).

''Given the diversity of landscape and activities across some 2.6 million hectares, a different model to incorporate flexibility in response to changing circumstances may have to be devised.

''There would also be a host of issues and sensitivities to consider, including cultural issues for Ngai Tahu, areas of differing land status, and the local sense of ownership around each park,'' Garden explains, adding further discussion of such a proposal is a ''wee way down the track''.

According to Gavin Walker, Doc's director of recreation, tourism and heritage, the agency is both a conservation and a tourism organisation.

''We are a provider of experiences in our own right, ... from short walks to campsites; we enable others to provide experiences [concessionaires] and we manage the raw product that visitors come to experience [the species of flora and fauna and natural characteristics of places].'' 

Walker says tourism growth is a positive for New Zealand. And there's no denying the economic benefits: tourism contributed $14.5 billion to the New Zealand economy in the year to March; the money spent by international visitors now accounts for 20.7% of export earnings; and the sector employs more than 188,000 people (7.5% of the total workforce).

''For Doc, the challenge is to maintain the quality of experience at high-use sites, while also ensuring that international visitor growth in other places is compatible with New Zealanders' enjoyment of and engagement with these places, too.''

Currently, one of Doc's key mechanisms for managing the flow of visitors to its national parks is via accommodation.

''Where overnight accommodation is provided, we can use booking systems to manage numbers and user charges to recover the operating costs [e.g., cleaning, wardens etc],'' Walker explains.

''We can also invest to boost capacity, although it is important not to build solely for peak loads.''

However, where no accommodation is provided, the tools are more limited.

''Co-marketing with others in the tourism sector looks like a key way to promote other places, to try to shift the load,'' Walker says, adding Doc is actively looking at overseas examples of back-country management, including ballot systems and replacing [private] vehicles with shuttle buses.

• Dave Bamford, a tourism and development consultant, believes the ''snowballing'' tourism industry will put pressure on all aspects of the sector, from arrivals at international airports to hotels, to our regions and into our national parks.

Bamford was among a crowd of about 200 people who gathered at a remote spot in northern Hawkes Bay in late September to celebrate the opening of Rocket Lab's launch site. What has an Auckland company's aspirations to provide frequent, relatively low-cost launch services (to a client base that includes Nasa) got to do with tourism? Plenty.

''With Rocket Lab looking at doing launches at least once a month from next year, I'm asking the question, `will visitors turn up?' I'm looking into how the area can capitalise in regards tourism.''

As part of its 2016 Budget, the Government established a $12 million annual Regional Mid-sized Tourism Facilities Grant Fund to help communities with smaller infrastructure needs, such as rubbish bins, car parks and toilets. It has also recently tweaked its Tourism Growth Partnership to enable half of the $8 million annual fund to be made available exclusively for projects in the regions.

These initiatives are among a raft of regional development strategies that include tourism as a major priority.

Bamford says this spreading of the load has both pros and cons.

''Now, for the first time in our history, we are having to address the numbers of tourists heading to our remote places. I think there is a real awareness among many smaller communities - particularly rural places - of the pressures.''

For example, the idea of freedom camping - or camping being free - is an oxymoron. It costs something: there is waste management and toilets.

''The flipside is the economic benefits to rural areas.

''Look at Mt Cook/Aoraki [sic] National Park, which is now a 365-day operation. More than 40,000 people went on glacial lake tours last season and that creates employment,'' says Bamford, who points out annual visitors to Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park now number  about 500,000.

''In many ways, places such as Auckland and Queenstown soak up the numbers. People then flow out into smaller places - for example, Tekapo and Twizel, which are embracing the growth - and into more remote areas.''

But, really, there are only about a dozen places that are under pressure. So we need to be careful we don't overcook the image that all of our national parks and special areas are flooded with people.

''Sure, you could look at the Tongariro Crossing or the Hooker Valley, where there is pressure that has to be managed. Yet you could easily go up valleys in Mt Aspiring National Park and have a remote experience.''

Neil Carr, head of the University of Otago's department of tourism, says growth raises more than a few questions, including how New Zealand is perceived by those  contemplating coming here for a holiday.

''Different tourists have different views and expectations depending on where they are from.''

If a tourist is coming from a mega-city in China, then their perception of what is busy will be very different from a person who lives in the South Island of New Zealand.

''Another question to ask is, will the types of tourist we have traditionally attracted go away because of growing numbers? I think we will see a change in the type of tourist we get,'' Carr says, referring to a concept known as the ''resort development life-cycle''.

The idea is that initially a place is discovered by adventurous types; in due course, the tourism industry takes notice; voila, more airlines, more hotels, more people.

''Arguably, that's the sort of trend we have seen in New Zealand's international visitor market over the last 40 or 50 years,'' Carr notes, adding: ''The question is, is there an end to this?''

New Zealand has long been on the bucket-list for many people. The barrier of distance, both physically and economically, is almost a status symbol for some tourists.

''But what happens when our tourism becomes large-scale? That exclusivity is lost. We might then be catering to a middle-class majority, and there's nothing wrong with that either, but the profit margin per person is potentially less.

''It is right that people might be concerned about the negative aspects of such growth, but there are a lot of positives. It's not just about jobs; it's about the quality of life that can come from increased services and facilities.''

Carr paints another picture: ''Imagine going back 20 years, taking a road trip from Dunedin to Queenstown, via Alexandra and other places. Those small country towns along that route were, how shall I put this, depressed. Now look. There are wee shops and cafes. Tourism has played a role in that.

''You can't get away from tourism hot spots.

''They are the best scenic sites, cultural sites, or they could be a place that got in before others and developed their outdoor adventure activities.

''And as the numbers of tourists heading to hot spots such as Queenstown grows, there are benefits elsewhere. It is being spread out.''