The Need to Know

At a time when we’ve never had more access to information, it’s truly remarkable how little we know about tourism in New Zealand.

Even though tourism took centre stage with its contribution to New Zealand’s economy over the last decade, there is no doubt that the range of available tourism data is smaller than it was a few years ago and hasn’t kept pace with changes in the way data is available.

Our industry has also long suffered from a dearth of research, science and innovation (RSI). Tourism is largely unrecognised by the public sector science system and there is no mechanism to access funding from other sources, including from industry itself.

A fundamental review of the tourism data and research system is needed. This is why Tourism Industry Aotearoa has made ‘Knowledge’ one of the six priority areas for action from the incoming Government in TIA’s Tourism Election 2020 Action Plan.

We have also submitted in-depth Position Papers setting out our ideas on both Tourism Data and Tourism Research to the Tourism Futures Taskforce, for their consideration.

Increasingly, the traditional data collecting methods are becoming obsolete. For instance: manually completed departure cards have been eliminated and this will likely happen to the arrivals card at some point; airline lounge interviewing for the International Visitor Survey became too hard and expensive and has been superseded by online surveying (which has its own limitations); phone interviews for domestic travel couldn’t be sustained; the very manual Accommodation Survey became too expensive for Stats NZ to operate; and so on. This trend will undoubtedly continue.

This means that new and different data sources need to be used. There is a vast amount of administrative data to tap into, including electronic card transactions, phone use, GPS, industry data, and much more. The issue here is that making good use of this data is technically very difficult and therefore expensive. With its difficulty and complexity, using this data is not straightforward for all users.

Research on tourism is also a challenge. There is no structure, system or funding dedicated to the research needs of our industry. 

There is no capacity for setting priorities, building research consortia and getting research programmes underway. There is no recognition of tourism within the government’s $1.4 billion RSI system. There is no structural mechanism to effectively engage the academic research capacity onto industry-relevant issues.

We can look enviously at primary sector industries like dairy, meat and wool, and wine, that all have strong research programmes.

The common thread is that these industries have a levy on the commodity produced that is then used for industry-good activities, whether advocacy, marketing or research. Often these levies are enacted in legislation, thereby providing an assured level of funding for the industries involved. Notably, these funds get vested with the industries themselves, and not a government agency. This enables the industry bodies to focus directly on the issues of most importance to their industry strategies, and to leverage other funding streams, whether public or private.   

Furthermore, there is a complex set of funding arrangements and institutions to deliver research for these industries. For instance, there are Government Science and Innovation funds they can tap into, and Government-funded Crown Research Institutes (e.g. AgResearch, Plant and Food, forestry’s Scion) and universities that have the capability to conduct research programmes. 

In late 2019, MBIE convened, on behalf of the Minister of Tourism, the Tourism Information and Data Hui. Attended by 80 people from industry, government and research communities, the Hui examined information needs, opportunities for development and what a collaborative data system should look like. 

The Hui was a success and there was a commitment to make real progress. The COVID-19 pandemic inevitably led to a delay in activating the agreed actions. But we must get moving. The revival and revitalisation of tourism will require serious improvements to be made to the tourism data system.

A collaborative approach by the public and private sectors is needed to address priorities for tourism data and research. We are calling on the incoming Government to allocate funds from the International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy (IVL) to support this work. Tourism also needs to have better access to the public sector science and research system.

TIA is firmly committed to improving the tourism data and research system, because having the right knowledge available for those who need it, is fundamental to building a sustainable tourism industry.