Skip to main content.

Sustainable tourism

A healthy and attractive environment is crucial to the success of New Zealand's tourism industry. Tourists are attracted to our unique environment. However, tourism has a direct impact on our environment. For tourism to continue to be successful in New Zealand, tourism businesses need to incorporate sustainable business practices into their operations.

Check out our latest draft resource: the New Zealand Eco-Wise Travel Guide. It is a simple guide for tourists and travellers to be waste-wise, water-wise, energy-wise and travel-wise.

What is sustainable tourism?

Sustainable tourism is about operators and regions working smarter and more sustainably. This means operators:

  • make their business practice more energy- and waste-efficient
  • involve the community in decision making
  • identify potential risks to the environment from their business and avoiding those risks
  • identify opportunities to market a business as sustainable
  • identify beneficial partnerships.

The natural environment, our communities, cultures and businesses are all part of what makes up the tourism industry. Businesses can benefit from the increasing number of visitors seeking an authentic and interactive experience by incorporating sustainable business practices into their operations.

Check out the results of the Sustainable Tourism Study Tour, conducted by Ministry for the Environment - June/July 2008.

Availability:

HTML
Downloand PDF (2.6 MB)
Download Power point (13.7 MB)
Download Word Document (72 KB)

New Zealand's Environmentally Sustainable Tourism Project

The Environmentally Sustainable Tourism project is run by the Ministry for the Environment and the Ministry of Tourism. The project builds on a successful pilot programme in Northland. Six regions in New Zealand are participating in the Sustainable Tourism project over 2005-2008, utilising resources from the New Zealand Tourism Strategy 2010 Tourism Strategy Fund. The six regions are:

Why the Ministry for the Environment and Ministry of Tourism are involved

The Environmentally Sustainable Tourism project progresses the Ministry for the Environment's commitments, including:

  • Quality economic growth
  • Government and industry working together to achieve sustainable results
  • Ensuring New Zealand industry competes, is profitable and grows sustainably

This project will also progress the New Zealand Tourism Strategy 2010's aim of maximising the sector's potential and grow tourism, whilst ensuring cultural, social, environmental and economic sustainability.

The project aims to establish six regional sustainable tourism charters committed to sustainable practices. These groups will enable the tourism industry to continue promoting New Zealand as a 'clean and green' destination by:

  • Improving the environmental performance of participating tourism operators
  • Providing ways to improve individual business capability around sustainable practices
  • Increasing the number of businesses actively incorporating sustainable business practices
  • Supporting the 100% Pure NZ brand
  • Becoming regional experts in sustainable business practices.

Last updated: 26 February 2009