While Mr Upton does not suggest solutions in this initial report, he leaves us in no doubt that imperilled is the answer if we carry on with business as usual in tourism.
It is not exactly news tourism has unwelcome impacts on the environment, but the will to deal with the issues in a comprehensive and cohesive way has been lacking to date.
The brief history of New Zealand tourism outlined in the report shows international tourism began as early as the 1840s. By 1874 concerns were being raised about vandalism, litter and access conflicts relating to Lake Rotomahana and the Pink and White Terraces.
While numbers of overseas tourists have increased significantly in recent years, domestic tourism accounted for $23 billion of the $39.1 billion spent in the year to March 2018.
However, international tourism, where visitor numbers have rocketed from one million in 1993 to nearly 3.9 million last year, is our biggest overseas earner, having overtaken dairying in 2017 and making up around a fifth of our foreign revenue.
Despite the increased numbers, the length of stay and average spend of our international visitors has been static for the last 20 years and, when inflation is accounted for, per-visitor spend has fallen.
We are becoming increasingly uneasy about the impacts of tourism, if last year's Mood of the Nation survey is anything to go by. It showed that while we still seemed supportive of international tourism, 43% of respondents believed tourism put too much pressure on New Zealand. Concerns cited included the lack of infrastructure to support the growth, increased traffic congestion and issues of road safety, environmental damage, accommodation shortages and overcrowding.
Such issues relating to what is called overtourism have been highlighted recently in the Queenstown context in research from the University of Otago.
If we do nothing to curtail growth, it is unclear what that growth might be. As Mr Upton puts it, by 2050, when our population may be around 6 million, the tourism sector could ‘‘plausibly be two to four times larger than it is today — but equally it might not be’’.
He asks the pertinent question about how New Zealand can continue to attract international visitors it relies on in the face of increasing policy and societal pressure to decrease and eliminate global carbon emissions. And, what will happen if greater taxes are placed on emissions internationally, increasing the cost of travel?
A head-in-the-sand approach seems to have been taken on this so far.
If the emphasis is to be for more domestic tourism in future the need to minimise or reverse environmental degradation will still be necessary.
The impact of climate change could also result in maladaptive practices involving emissions-intensive activities. Already this can be seen at Fox Glacier, where restricted walking access to the shrinking glacier has resulted in increased helicopter and aeroplane flights.
While value versus volume is often touted as a solution to increasing pressure — where ‘‘high value’’ tourists spend up large in exclusive locations — Mr Upton said the underlying narrative was almost always one of both value and volume.
‘‘Having one's cake and eating it too is as alive and well in tourism as any industry.’’
As Mr Upton puts it, if the future of tourism's environmental trajectory is to be different from its past, different strategies and policies will be needed, based on a shared view of the challenges faced.
We are hopeful there will be thoughtful feedback to Mr Upton's report which might offer some sensible ideas for the way ahead. It is increasingly clear business as usual is not the answer.
