Public Sector Infrastructure Toolbox
Last updated:
September 2008
Introduction and Scope
The focus of the Toolbox is public sector infrastructure. The target audience is infrastructure planners and designers, and managers of the infrastructure services used by the tourism sector. The Toolbox aims to provide information, data and resources for this audience.
This Toolbox focuses on three specific aspects of public sector infrastructure supplied by local government which are essential to New Zealand’s tourism industry:
- Water supply;
- Wastewater management;
- Solid waste management.
Tourism can place significant demands on public sector infrastructure. For example in some small communities, like Akaroa, tourism accounts for more than fifty percent of total annual water use. As visitor numbers increase, so does the pressure on services
Each area has a different visitor profile depending on the proportion of holiday homes, day visitors and overnight visitors relative to the permanent population, and on commercial and industrial demands. Different visitor profiles represent different demands on public sector infrastructure. There is also increasing emphasis on providing infrastructural services that meet sustainability criteria.
This Toolbox will help you to estimate visitor use of water, wastewater and solid waste services, so that planning and management can better meet the needs of all stakeholders in the VICE model – visitors, industry, community and the environment.
Why use this Toolbox?
Good information about usage of public infrastructure by visitors enables a local authority to better plan for tourism growth. It also allows for informed debate about charging policies for public infrastructure, and helps secure funding for additional infrastructure. Yet few local authorities have the data they need to make quality decisions.
This Toolbox contains resources to help local authorities gather data about key areas of pubic sector infrastructure usage. It recommends that local authorities adopt an integrated and systematic approach to addressing infrastructure issues. Good planning, design and management of infrastructure helps achieve sustainable economic development, efficient services and optimal benefit from the use of public funds.
There are two main reasons why it is difficult for local authorities to estimate accurately the usage of water, wastewater and solid waste disposal systems by visitors:
- The number of visitors to the community is unclear;
- No accurate data on usage of water per visitor, or wastewater and solid waste production per visitor.
Gathering the necessary data is complicated by variations in seasonal visitor patterns and usage of services, and varying levels of usage by different categories of visitor (such as luxury hotel users compared with backpackers). The resources in this Toolbox will help you gather the information you need.
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