Tourism – caring for New Zealand’s environment

New Zealand’s natural environment is the primary motivation for travel by our international visitors, plays a major part in domestic leisure travel, and forms the basis for thousands of tourism businesses. The tourism sector must protect and enhance the environment on which it depends, for the enjoyment of future generations, and future visitors.

New Zealand is a long-haul destination for most of our international markets, and concerns about carbon emissions and the environmental impacts of tourism are increasing in some core markets. In addition, environmental standards in some of our visitors’ home countries are more stringent than in New Zealand, and inform what they expect to see in New Zealand.

Opinions on and responses to environmental concerns, especially climate change, are developing rapidly, both internationally and onshore. Given New Zealand’s distance from key markets, and our ‘100% Pure’ international marketing promise, New Zealand’s tourism sector needs to respond to environmental challenges visibly and promptly. By doing so, we have the potential to gain competitive advantage internationally.

Environmental sustainability will be a key principle of the New Zealand Tourism Strategy 2015 which sets out the vision for the tourism sector to take a leading role in protecting and enhancing the environment.

A large amount of information is available to help tourism operators improve the environmental performance of their businesses. This can have the additional benefits of improving your business’ performance and bottom-line.

Click here for a list of websites providing environmental sustainability tips for New Zealand tourism operators.

Click here for a selection of mainly international websites offering information on environmental initiatives.

TIA wishes to lead the way in promoting environmental sustainability in the New Zealand tourism industry. TRENZ 2007 was New Zealand’s largest carbon neutral event to date, while the Tourism Industry Conference has been carbon neutral for several years.