100% Pure Future: New Zealand Tourism Renewed

by Sarah Bennett, Dave Bamford, Susanne Becken

Covid-19 has had a devastating effect on New Zealand tourism, but the industry was already troubled by unchecked growth and questionable governance that has put pressure on the environment, infrastructure and communities. In this urgent collection of essays, nine writers outline their vision for sustainable tourism, the barriers to achieving it and how they can be overcome. This BWB Text is a rallying call for a genuine tourism ‘reset’ that puts the environment first and creates more meaningful exchanges between visitors and their hosts.

155 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 8, 2020

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name on GR

Reviews

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The time has come for a collective assessment of NZ tourism-its volume, form, style, speed and spread. But we also need to consider its purpose, and the values by which we measure it. These questions will inevitably lead us to consider how tourism can contribute to the four capitals- natural, social, cultural and financial.”

This is certainly one of the better ones I’ve read in the series over the last few years, though the introduction seemed to serve as much as to tell us about how popular the writer was rather than a point on tourism, and much of this felt too much about cloying networkers promoting themselves and their businesses, with one chapter in particular seemingly almost totally irrelevant, but was thrown in there for “other” reasons?...

“Thirty years ago, NZ was internationally regarded as a world leader in the professional and sustainable management of national parks. That was in an era of few tourists-one million international visitors in 1990. In 2019 NZ hosted four million. Our national park management regime has not kept up.”

At one point I came across the jarring phrase the “Kiwi way”. Now there’s a loaded term that could mean almost anything, depending who is wanting to use it to their advantage. I actually just asked the other half there (a Kiwi) what does she think it means, and she gave me a vague, meaningless answer.

I fear I’ve gone astray here, there is determination and optimism in here, and they list many of the issues which desperately need addressed in relation to the environment and sustainability etc and how everyone knows that the DOC are greatly underfunded, and so what does the current government do to help?...Make even more cuts and job losses.

This book was written when Labour and the Greens were in charge, so there's a vague sense of hope, but god knows what these writers think now that those awful, hateful racist bigot businessmen are in charge, fast tracking their way to even more riches, bypassing democracy, to mine in those sacred green spaces, laughing aloud like cartoon baddies as they savour their greed and excess. But hey it’s just the “Kiwi way” and you should be showing gratitude for being in NZ.