About $16.5 million will have been spent by June on what to do about over-tourism in Milford Sound, but Tourism minister Matt Doocey says the work has been, at times, “incoherent”. Are we about to see very little change after so much money over more than seven years? derek cheng reports. …
One of the plan's key proposals is to put most of the 5000 to 6000 people a day on buses, starting in Te Anau. There would be several places of interest – to be developed – along the Milford SH94 corridor where the buses would stop.
Other suggestions include banning cruise ships and fixed-wing aircraft, which some tourism operators fear would see them go belly-up.
So Labour spent $17 million on a working group, whose answer was to ban people being able to drive, fly or cruise to Milford Sound!
Tourism is a huge part of our economy, providing hundreds of thousands of jobs. Making it harder for people to access our most popular tourist destination is as daft as refusing to reopen the track to our second most popular one.
The obvious answer is infrastructure upgrades.
David Farrar runs Curia Market Research, a specialist opinion polling and research agency, and the popular Kiwiblog where this article was sourced. He previously worked in the Parliament for eight years, serving two National Party Prime Ministers and three Opposition Leaders.
3 comments:
Infrastructure upgrade for Tourism and by assocition New Zealanders is always good , however when Maori tourism conglomerates operate under dubious trust arrangements and DO NOT pay income tax it is a broken system.
All major operations should be stripped of Trust status including Ngai Tahu , Tainui and also Sanitarium who are owned by a church for the start .
Excuse me, but what exactly is the reason you go to Milford Sound for. Not to live and work, that's for sure.
It's a 100% holiday destination. It relies entirely on tourists. It's certainly in the top 3 NZ destinations for both overseas visitors and Kiwis.
Only our loony Labour-Greens government could waste $17M and reach the conclusion that less tourists were the answer.
I want a "consultants" job.
My opinion is as good, in fact better than those head nodding " group think" pounamu wearing plonkers.
A couple of Labour government contracts and I could retire filthy rich !
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