In response to a review ordered by Prime Minister John Key into the adventure tourism industry it has been reported that a compulsory registration and an audit regime is likely to be imposed.
Much like the recent example of the hapless taxi industry, NZ's Adventure Tourism industry appears to be happy sleepwalking towards regulatory control.
In our post HERE we wrote:
"For the sake of New Zealand's tourism industry we hope that the adventure tourism operators are able to back themselves by finding their own reasoned voice. They should be rejecting the politically correct default position of surrendering themselves to regulation by proving that they are able to stand up for themselves and continue along the pathway of self-regulation."On behalf of adventure tourism operators, Destination Queenstown Board chairman Mark Quickfall and the Tourism Industry Association were quick to give unqualified support for regulation before any details had been fleshed out.
So what do we know so far?
A regulatory scheme could capture 1500 commercial operators that will be charged between $1000 - $2,200 for an initial audit. Further periodic audits would be necessary at an undetermined frequency, however subsequent audits would be half the price of the initial audit. It is not clear if registration fees would be an additional ongoing cost for operators?
It is estimated that a nationwide regulatory regime would cost between $150,000 and $250,000 to set up and it is not reported if this will be self-sustaining or require ongoing funding input to maintain.
One concerning description of the proposed regime is that it will be "world-leading." This is bureaucracy-speak that can be translated into meaning: expensive, prohibitive and ineffective.
