The Green Party supports tourism that is sustainable, inclusive, and enhances the well-being of people and the environment. For Māori, this means protecting and sharing culture through tourism that upholds tikanga and tino rangatiratanga. Aotearoa New Zealand needs a national strategy that supports low-impact tourism, reducing emissions, protecting nature, and strengthening local communities. When tourism is managed responsibly, it creates meaningful connections, supports local economies, and ensures future generations can enjoy our natural and cultural heritage.
Vision
Tourism enhances cultural connections and delivers an experience to visitors that protects communities and the natural world.
Values and Principles
Decision-making in relation to tourism must uphold the following interconnected values and principles:
- Kaitiakitanga: Tourism activities must protect and nurture our natural environment, which has more value than just an attraction or experience for visitors.
- Āhua o te rangi: Tourism is dependent on a stable climate, and must transition to lower emissions and greater resilience.
- Manaakitanga: Tourism is a form of hospitality that must enhance the well-being of tourists and communities.
- Kotahitanga: Tourism should work collaboratively to help achieve collective goals.
- Rangapū: Partnering with Māori provides unique, culturally authentic, non-exploitative tourism.
- Tauutuutu: Tourism should build reciprocal, long-term relationships that involve a mutually beneficial sharing of culture, experience, and resources.
Strategic Priorities
The Green Party’s strategic goals include:
“...regenerative practices in all areas of economic activity, including land use and food production, will predominate.”
Actions in this policy that will help achieve this include:
- Phasing out permits and subsidies and introducing disincentives for high-emission tourism activities, and providing resources for a just transition. (1.1.1)
- Establish a regulatory framework for limiting international tourism, based on the environmental impacts of international flights. (1.1.3 )
- Ensure fairness and justice in tourism development decision-making, by considering the impacts of tourism on communities. (2.1.1)
- Removing barriers to equitably accessing domestic tourism experiences. (3.1.1)
- Reorienting the Aotearoa New Zealand tourism strategy around domestic tourism, coordinating regional bodies, and enabling informed decisions by regional bodies. (3.1.1)
- Resourcing Māori Tourism to oversee and, if necessary, restrict tourism operators who are misappropriating Māori taonga, guided by local iwi and hapū. (4.1.1)
Connected Policies
Tourism falls under our wider Business Policy. Tourism benefits from Te Tiriti o Waitangi, vibrant Arts, Culture and Heritage, suitable active and public Transport options and other infrastructure (see also our Government in the Economy Policy), and healthy ecosystems (see our Biodiversity and Environmental Regeneration Policy), and must reciprocate. Tourism must adapt to the realities of Climate Change and the needs of communities (see our Housing and Sustainable Communities, Rural Communities, Workforce, and Community and the Economy Policies). For more on upholding mātauranga Māori as intellectual property belonging to Māori, see our Research, Science and Technology Policy.
