Project Commitments, 2003 and Beyond

Themes:

• Quality

• Marketing

• Capability

• Sustainability

• Community

• Alignment

The unparalleled success of recent years could mean the tourism sector must be doing everything right. Why seek to change?

It is the sign of a maturing sector that in good times, government, industry leaders and operators invest in strengthening the foundations of their business to help ride out leaner periods ahead.

It is healthy for the sector to acknowledge its achievements, but not at the price of complacency. This attitude inspired industry and government to develop the Strategy in 2000. We have already seen the benefits resulting from this commitment.

It is not time to review the Strategy as a whole. We are only 2 years into a 10-year strategy and while impressive progress has been made, there is much to be done. The Strategy itself does not recommend a substantive review until 2005.

This booklet represents a significant ongoing commitment to the Strategy by a range of agencies and stakeholders, and illustrates the range of work undertaken and underway to achieve the Strategy’s vision. Over and above existing commitments, agencies have specified the following projects for their attention over the next 2-3 years.

The range and scope of this work is impressive, but it cannot capture the huge variety of initiatives to be planned and executed by tourism operators, both large and small, as they seek to expand and upgrade their businesses.

• Achieve sign off on quality assessment module for Maori cultural tourism product and build critical mass of license holders (Qualmark to lead).

• Develop an online tourism facility to provide a complete set of options to travel consumers and enable the industry to engage effectively with a global audience. Project to commence in July 2003 (TNZ to lead).
  
• Target the ‘Interactive Traveller’ across all elements of marketing activity (TNZ to lead).
  
• Host visiting media for the premiere of the third film in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and provide promotional information on website (TNZ to lead).
  
• Enhance relationships between regional tourism organisations and arts, culture and heritage organisations to better enable regions that are established cultural tourism providers to develop and deliver high quality product at regional level (TMT to lead).
  
• Ensure that cultural tourism takes a higher priority in the New Zealand brand promise to develop awareness and demand for New Zealand’s cultural tourism product (TNZ to lead).
  
• Maximise product development, international marketing and development of new markets through trade shows and staff training (ITOC and TNZ to lead).
  
• Host meeting in August 2003 with Maori tourism operators and stakeholders to discuss international promotion of Maori products (TNZ to lead).

• Develop a formal skills qualification policy for workforce planning, to quantify information on skills needs of industry in future and outline how these might be met (TIANZ to lead).
  
• Establish pilot scheme for a backpacker hostel training programme (TIANZ and ATTTO to lead).
  
• Develop tour guide accreditation scheme with aim of achieving Qualmark endorsement (ITOC and ATTTO to lead).
  
• Increase funding for tourism sector applied research to address knowledge gaps and inform consideration of sustainability issues. Funding levels to better reflect the contribution of tourism to the New Zealand economy and commitment of both public and private sectors to achieving this objective (TMT and TRCNZ to lead).
  
• Establish programme to implement recommendations of the Review of Tourism Statistics as part of processes to increase quality of core tourism data set (TMT to lead).
  
• Consolidate TRCNZ website as primary point of access to tourism sector research and data through development of website content and communicating the benefits of website usage to sector stakeholders (TMT and TRCNZ to lead).
  
• Assess capital utilisation efficiency in tourism industry and develop strategies for improvement (TIANZ to lead).

• Investigate a national online hut booking system, with scoping report to be available by end of June 2003 (DOC to lead).
  
• Scope and design a more effectively aligned concession system, including potential linkages with Green Globe 21. TIANZ, TMT and other industry contacts to peer review outcomes with final report due in February 2004 (DOC to lead).
  
• Lead a CDRP-funded research project to model socio-economic benefits of providing tourism concessions in conservation areas. Research due to be finished in November 2004 (DOC to lead).
  
• Establish forum for exchange of views between traditional recreational user groups and wider tourism industry, with first meeting to be held in August 2003 (DOC to lead).
  
• Analysis of visitor sites, application of user standards and – in consultation with wider community – decisions about the provision of recreational facilities. The objective is long-term sustainability of DOC facilities. Public consultation process to commence in November 2003 (DOC to lead).
  
• Lead a 3-year CDRP-funded research project titled Capacity Requirements in Light of Increasing Tourism Demand, commencing in July 2003. Project will consider the capacity of public sector, non-governmental and environmental elements to respond to forecast increase in visitor nights (TMT to lead).
  

• Lead research project to examine how Statistics New Zealand data sources – such as the Census and Labour Force Survey – can be utilised and linked to develop sound information about Maori participation in tourism. Results will set baselines for future trend analysis (TMT to lead).
  
• Compile online database of Maori tourism operators, contribution to growth of Maori tourism clusters (Poutama Trust to lead).
  
• Advance, with support of TMT, ten key projects that make up second RTO response to the Strategy. Projects include enhancing TNZ and RTO co-ordination, best practice RTO operations manuals and governance, and building partnerships with Maori Regional Tourism Groups. All projects to be completed by December 2003 (RTONZ to lead).
  
• Seek further Strategy funding for key projects from Postcards from Home. TMT to work with LGNZ to progress their funding bid and to facilitate project development and co-ordination with other Strategy and related initiatives (LGNZ to lead).
  
• Run programme to raise awareness of value of tourism to communities and encourage local authorities to play more active role in tourism development, drawing on Local Government Tourism Strategy (TIANZ to lead).

• Strengthen relationships between RTOs and MRTGs, through continued communication and assessment of benefits of further hui (TMT to lead).