Queenstown Lakes District deputy mayor Calum Macleod is calling for "bold leadership" following the Covid-19 crisis.
He took to social media to ask residents to help make the Lakes "the most environmentally conscious destination on the planet".
Pitching it as an opportunity to hit the reset button on tourism, he said New Zealand needed to have a serious discussion around destination management.
"With the aim, at some stage, of limiting numbers coming into New Zealand and by default, into this district", he said.
Following a Zoom meeting with business owners on Tuesday, Cr Macleod said he would continue to "have conversations with the right people and with the other councillors".
This would ensure the immediate needs for the recovery of the district’s economy did not compromise "the longer-term, higher-level goals and aspirations."
"The task ahead for the council’s [yet to be formed] economic and community task force groups is to have mechanisms, plans and resources available and ready to be put in place when this current crisis has run its course."
Mass tourism had been irrevocably altered, and a return to business as usual and more of the same was not an option, he said.
