Tourism writer urges NZ to charge more

Keith Bellows

Travellers to New Zealand should bear the cost of a sustainable tourism industry, not tour operators or governments, the editor-in-chief of one of the world's most widely read travel magazines said yesterday.

Keith Bellows, vice-president of the National Geographic Society and editor of its Traveler magazine, said operators and attractions can afford to charge tourists a premium for practices that preserve New Zealand's environment.

"If you want someone to pay a premium to come here they will," Bellows told a crowd of about 300 at the tourism industry conference in Auckland.

He argued that tacking on an environmental surcharge would not deter visitors. US tourists, for instance, would pay up to a 10 per cent premium for conservation of locales they are visiting.

Fiona Luhrs, chief executive of the Tourism Industry Association, disagreed, saying that the cost of balancing tourism interests with conservation should be spread wider.

Luhrs said not only the Department of Conservation, but other Government departments, local authorities and travellers should pay.

She stopped short of calling for a daily conservation rate to be tacked on to the price of popular attractions.

"We are at the high end of the market and we must charge higher prices than we currently do," she said.

Bellows, the keynote speaker at the three-day conference which ends today, gave New Zealand kudos for being a world leader in sustainable tourism practices.

The South Island ranked in the top three on Traveler magazine's Destination Scorecard, which studied stewardship of some of the world's once unspoiled locales. Norway's fjords and Cape Breton Island in Canada topped the list.

The tourist footprint on New Zealand's shores is growing, with international arrivals set to reach 3.21 million by 2011, according to the latest forecast from the Ministry of Tourism.