Numbers bring problems, but also opportunities

Everywhere we met people, they talked about numbers. In the Queenstown Lakes district, these numbers were dominated by international tourists, while in the other areas, domestic tourists were still the largest group. No matter where people were coming from, however, the impact was widely felt.

One landholder, who has a popular walkway that crosses his property, spoke of the numbers of people increasing from approximately 30,000 per year in 2013 to an expected 70-100,000 people in 2017.

While most private landholders, the Department of Conservation and local authorities all agreed that the percentage of poorly behaved visitors wasn’t getting worse, the number increases mean the impact of poor behaviour is still growing.

One noted issue was the impact of the internet making it harder to predict which walks/areas will become popular — one viral Instagram post or YouTube video can result in thousands more people coming to a place previously only known to locals.

The internet means areas that were only known to locals become more widely known, but the etiquette doesn’t go with it — we used to get away with a lot because of low numbers but increasing numbers mean more impact on people, farmers, and the environment.
— Tourism operator, Mackenzie District 

Increased numbers and unpredictability are also making landholders warier of opening new access points. A farmer happy to have a track with 1000 people per year might be less willing to do so if they are fearful they will instead have 20,000 people per year.

Over 30 years, increased tourist numbers and more demand for access has made some farmers less willing.
— Tourism operator and landholder, Mackenzie District

Many interviewees pointed out that numbers in themselves are not necessarily a bad thing, but rather it is the unpredictability and the lack of control over where people go that can cause problems. Positives of increased numbers include more money flowing into regions, and more opportunities for farmers to diversify their income streams to help subsidise bad years in their core operation — such as accommodation on trails, concessions for guided tours, and more.

There can be a large fixed overhead to provide access / a service — without numbers it all becomes uneconomic.
— Tourism operator and landholder, Mackenzie District

The challenge of how to manage visitors is one that a number of agencies are grappling with. Tourism New Zealand is putting into place new digital marketing strategies to target particular types of tourists with different messages, while the Department of Conservation has set itself the challenge of using its communication channels to direct visitors around their network of conservation land to where they want people to go.