Refining Tourism Bureaucracy

The government's efficiency drive has finally caught up with the Ministry of Tourism and Tourism NZ.

A consultancy firm has undertaken a major report that has reviewed the government's tourism sector agencies.

One of the major recommendations in the report is for the Tourism Ministry to be merged into the Ministry of Economic Development. It has been reported that John Key will confirm this along with other structural changes in the next few days.

Other recommendations include: 

• More private sector funding should be sought for tourism marketing.
• Marketing outcomes need to be better qualified.
• Roles of both Ministry of Tourism and Tourism New Zealand need to be defined to reduce duplication.
• Ministry of Tourism needs to qualify the value of scholarship tourism facilities grants totalling $300,000.
• Ministry of Tourism should divest its land management responsibilities to Land Information New Zealand.
• Tourism New Zealand should sell its 60 percent stake in in Qualmark NZ once it becomes financially sustainable to the private sector or to an industry body such as the TIA (more on this later)
• Tourism NZ should reduce the size of its board of directors.

Notably there will be some objection from industry administrators, however we believe that the report outlines a step in the right direction.

The full report is available to read: HERE.