Setting targets
This Strategy sets out a number of priorities and actions to guide the development of New Zealand’s tourism sector to 2015.
It also sets the four outcomes the sector wants to achieve during that time. They are:
Outcome 1
New Zealand delivers a world-class visitor experience
Outcome 2
New Zealand’s tourism sector is prosperous and attracts ongoing investment
Outcome 3
The tourism sector takes a leading role in protecting and enhancing New Zealand’s environment
Outcome 4
The tourism sector and communities work together for mutual benefit.
The best way of measuring our progress in achieving these outcomes is by setting targets. Targets give us something to strive for, and they provide us with a way of monitoring our progress towards 2015 and beyond.
The targets indicate what kind of future we want. They can only be achieved if we succeed in all areas of the Strategy. Success in one area depends on and will influence success in other areas. For example, we cannot deliver a world-class visitor experience if we fail to take a leading role in protecting and enhancing our environment.
Success also depends on the whole tourism sector taking responsibility for achieving the targets. One successful organisation or business alone is not enough. We need to work together, with the support of the Government, to meet these targets and to make sure we are headed in the same direction.
The targets are focused on improving quality and value, rather than on increasing volume. The overall volume of the sector is forecast to grow anyway, with international visitor arrivals forecast to increase by 4% every year.
We have set the targets so that we can measure the overall quality of the sector in a way that is independent of these changes in volume. By achieving the quality targets in combination with achieving or exceeding the forecast growth in volume, we will deliver a tourism sector that is economically, environmentally, socially, and culturally sustainable.
The targets are set across five key areas.
- Increasing visitor satisfaction
- Increasing the amount that visitors spend
- Reducing seasonality
- Delivering environmental best practice
- Creating positive community outcomes.
In many cases the targets are ambitious. For example, changing the seasonal patterns of tourism in New Zealand will be a challenge. They are deeply entrenched and they have not changed for the past 20 years. Increasing satisfaction levels will also be difficult, given that they are already high.
We will be focusing on high-level indicators of performance in the tourism sector. These will help us monitor and evaluate how well the Strategy is being implemented.
The New Zealand Tourism Strategy targets: Stream 1
The targets in Stream 1 can be measured using existing sources of data. The Ministry of Tourism will publish a tracking series on its research website. The series will be updated as new data becomes available.
Increasing visitor satisfaction
Target: Increase by four percentage points the number of international travellers who rate their overall experience of New Zealand as 8 or more on a 10-point scale. This would see an increase from the current average of 83% to 87% by 2015.
Increasing the amount visitors spend
Target: Increase the average amount that visitors spend per night from $130 to $160 by 2015. This figure has been adjusted for the Consumer Price Index and the Trade Weighted Index, and does not include education travellers.
Reducing seasonality
Target: Increase the number of international visitors who arrive in the shoulder season (March and April, September and October) at a rate that is 25% faster than the overall annual forecast growth rate every year between now and 2015.
New Zealand Tourism Strategy targets: Stream 2
There are not yet any reliable sources of data to measure the targets in Stream 2. We need to develop these so that we can establish and implement these targets.
The Ministry of Tourism will be responsible for coordinating this, starting in late 2007. The Ministry’s research website will provide information on how this process is progressing.
Delivering environmental best practice
Carbon emissions
We must develop ways of measuring the amount of carbon emitted by the tourism sector, relate these to economy-wide policies, and define and implement measurable targets.
Satisfaction with environmental performance
We must develop ways of measuring how satisfied visitors are with New Zealand’s environment performance, and define and implement measurable targets. This can be done by enhancing our existing data-collection tools.
Creating positive community outcomes
We must develop ways of measuring how local government accommodates and promotes tourism and how residents feel about the tourism activities taking place in their communities. We then need to define and implement measurable targets.
Domestic tourism
We must develop measures for satisfaction, seasonality, and spend for domestic tourism in New Zealand, and define and implement measurable targets.