Council ceo to participate in adventure tourism review

Queenstown Lakes District Council chief executive Duncan Field will represent Local Government New Zealand in a ministerial review of safety in adventure tourism.

“The review was initiated by Prime Minister John Key, following the tragic death of a British tourist during a river boarding trip on the Kawarau River last year,” Mr Field said.

Mr Field’s role in the review would be to represent local government and not other sectors such as destination marketing or tourism, whose interests would be represented by other agencies.

“I will be contributing to the review from a regulatory perspective. We have in part been invited to contribute because of Queenstown’s ongoing commitment to assuring safety in many aspects of adventure tourism, including waterways and in the air,” Mr Field said.

This included the council’s involvement in resource consenting, the operation of legislation such as the Shotover River Empowering Act, and the harbourmaster function and bylaws.

“It is more appropriate that the council be involved in the review, rather than remaining on the outside and making submissions to the process”, he said.

The review would be undertaken in two phases, with phase one covering scoping and establishing the knowledge base and stage two looking at the analysis, problem definition and reporting.

It was anticipated that a final report, including options and recommendations would be presented to government by March, 31, 2010.