Putting a leash on freedom camping: the tricky business of keeping locals happy and the tourist dollars coming

Knowing where they can and can't go is a big issue for campers, particularly foreigners, says Iain Cossar, general manager tourism at MBIE. Photo / Supplied

Driving off into a far sunset is the fuel of dreams but for some communities and local authorities the upsurge in motor camping has been a nightmare.

Queenstown has been one such community incensed by what Iain Cossar, general manager tourism at MBIE, the business ministry, calls resulting "social licence issues" or less delicately, the problem of "toilet paper in the woods".

Poor behaviour by campers without toilets in their vehicles, congestion at DoC reserves, overcrowded parking sites in towns and a shortage of infrastructure to support the influx because councils are always strapped for cash have resulted in "tensions" between some communities and so-called "freedom campers".

Their growth has also highlighted gaps and deficiencies in our regulations, particularly in officially mustering and sorting genuine "self-contained" campers from pretenders, says Cossar.

As co-chair, with Rotorua Mayor Steve Chadwick, of the new Responsible Camping Working Group, Cossar is leading a charge by national and local government and the tourism sector to get on top of this bittersweet visitor trend which can bring dollars to provincial towns off the beaten tourist track - but at a price.

MBIE says the number of international visitors who did some freedom camping here rose from 54,000 in 2013 to around 123,000 last year. Total estimated spending by these visitors also increased significantly - from $210 million to $540m last year.

Their average spend was $4400 per visitor in 2017 and 2018, higher than the national average for international visitors. This is because they stay longer. Their average stay was 46 days, three times longer than the average of other visitors. They visited 6.2 regions on average, compared to 3.2 regions for all visitors.

MBIE doesn't collect data on domestic freedom campers.

So what's being done to relieve the tensions?

Overarching the situation is Government's tourism strategy, launched this year with the goal of ensuring all tourism growth is sustainable and everyone benefits, including local communities, says Cossar.

That means his job is to help find sustainable ways local government, always slow to respond to jags in growth demand, can fund infrastructure to support local tourism, and ensure visitors are paying their full costs when they come to town.

Caravans

The official moniker for all this is "responsible camping".

For this year and last, $16.5m has been allocated from the Tourism Infrastructure Fund specifically for councils to support responsible camping.

Some of that has funded community "ambassadors" to shepherd campers to where the townspeople want them to park. "Freedom camping" ain't what it used to be.

The idea has worked very well, particularly in Queenstown, says Cossar, with far fewer complaints this year than last.

There are plenty of places campers can be shepherded to. Most campers just need a bit of guidance.

Cossar says there are about 400 private and council-owned holiday parks across the country (their numbers pretty stable despite headlines about sales to housing developers according to the working group expert), there's DoC land, and then councils have their own parking management rules and tools.

Then there's technology.

"We're working with tech providers GeoZone (the online tourist network) on colour-coded zones which show you can't camp here at all, or you can camp here if you're self-contained, or here if you're not."

It's a voluntary compliance system and most people are happy to comply, Cossar says.

Knowing where they can and can't go is a big issue for campers, particularly foreigners, he says.

"This year we're going to scale it up and try to manage it as a network. If one community says they can't camp there at all, it just pushes them down the road to the next town. We need to join it up a bit more. We're putting in a national co-ordinator for ambassadors and make it a requirement that councils talk to each other."

Another management initiative has been installation of sensors and cameras at some camping sites in a collaboration with GeoZone.

The technology counts campers, recognises when a park is full, and advises plugged-in campers likely to be heading for that camp that it's full while suggesting another to try.

"It's only been trialled in a few areas but it's had an 80 per cent success rate. It's been phenomenal. We're going to trial it again this year, refine it, and think about rolling it out nationwide in congested areas," Cossar says.

A Tourism NZ website explaining what it means to be a responsible camper has had a million hits, he says.

Underpinning all this is policy development work.

The Government called a meeting last year of the country's mayors to discuss if law should be changed to prohibit freedom camping unless a council permitted it.

"We decided not to do that," Cossar says.

"Councils can pass (their own) bylaws and rules to manage it. Some councils aren't keen on campers but some are very, very keen because they go further into regions than other visitors. They're more adventurous than other tourists and they're welcomed."

Driving off into a far sunset is the fuel of dreams. Photo / Supplied

Also under review, in consultation with the Ministry of Health, are the regulations governing holiday parks.

"They were written in the 1950s and updated in the 1980s. Our preliminary view is the world has moved on and they haven't. They impose a bunch of costs on holiday parks that probably don't need to be there, and possibly prevent people from creating new parks and offering services we'd like to see that would take the pressure off the network."

Finally, there's the job of making sure a camper claiming to be self-contained does indeed have a proper toilet and is able to store water that is safe to drink.

Cossar says the original standard for 'self-contained' has "a very light touch". The requirement for certification that a vehicle is compliant, and enforcement around it, is at best loose.

People aren't above converting a vehicle into a camper - sans toilet - and slapping on a "self-contained" sticker downloaded from the internet, he says.

"This is the bit that incenses local communities so much. They see these vehicles and know there's no way they are self-contained. There's no toilet and there's only one thing they could be doing.

"We have no way to track all that to make sure [certification] decisions are correct. So we need a complete regulatory regime so we know who is certifying them, what vehicles are certified, and then makes that information available to councils and other parties so it can be checked."

Cossar's hoping that regime could be past Cabinet and in place in the next two years.

He says there are far fewer problem vehicles out there these days, but they are still a concern.

So will ratepayers end up carrying the costs after this initial pro-active flurry by Government?

"No. We are looking for sustainable funding solutions where visitors meet their own costs. The rates mechanism has not proven an efficient way to respond to this very strong growth. This is about making solutions for local government that don't fall on ratepayers."