A job description, finally written down
For years councils have been told to get back to basics: rubbish, water, roads. Now the government has published a document that says the opposite. On 25 June 2026, Tourism and Hospitality Minister Louise Upston released New Zealand’s first Tourism Policy Statement, setting out a formal division of labour between central government, councils and industry.
The policy assigns local government responsibility for leading place-based destination management, running domestic marketing through Regional Tourism Organisations, and owning or investing in tourism facilities including airports, stadiums, galleries and convention centres. It describes events, museums, public spaces and visitor infrastructure as “foundational to tourism”. That is a long way from rubbish, water and roads.
The clarity is genuinely welcome. Regional Tourism New Zealand Chair Andrew Wilson called the statement’s 46 actions a “significant milestone”, saying that after years of asking for national coordination, “this statement says it back to us in black and white.” Rotorua Lakes Council Mayor Tania Tapsell described the shift as a “swivel” from central government, noting that councils had “lacked that detail in the past when the government’s said ‘Cut your costs’ and I’m going, ‘Well how am I going to keep this airport open?'”
A big sector with a big target attached
The stakes justify the attention. Total tourism expenditure reached $46.621 billion in the year to March 2025, split between $28.473 billion domestic and $18.147 billion international. The sector contributes 7.7% of GDP and employs 327,888 people directly and indirectly, making it the country’s second largest export earner.
International spending has staged a remarkable rebound from a Covid low of $1.485 billion in the year to March 2021. April 2026 arrivals hit 288,500, up 8% year-on-year and at 94% of pre-pandemic levels. The government’s ambition, set out in the Beehive announcement, is to double the 2023 value of tourism exports by 2034. Upston told RNZ that “a deliberate, planned approach is essential to achieving our tourism growth goals.”
The money doesn’t match the mandate
Here is where the story turns. The new funding attached to the policy is a $5 million Regional Tourism Boost for campaigns targeting Australian, Chinese and North American visitors. But $3 million of that is reallocated from an existing Major Events and Tourism Package and $2 million comes from the International Visitor Levy. It is not new money in any meaningful sense.
Wilson was blunt about the gap: “Recognition in policy must now be matched by investment,” he said, warning that current arrangements are “showing signs of pressure, particularly at local government level.” RTOs already lean heavily on councils, which supply the bulk of their income.
The contradiction is not manufactured. At the same time as it hands councils a tourism delivery role, the government is legislating to narrow councils’ statutory purpose through the Local Government (System Improvements) Amendment Bill and pushing to cap rates. Upston’s office told Newsroom the policy is “wholly in line” with that bill, a claim that is hard to reconcile with legislation designed to trim what councils are allowed to do.
Lincoln University Emeritus Professor David Simmons put the structural problem plainly. “You can’t just talk up tourism and expect places and New Zealanders to absorb the pressure,” he said, pointing to the visitors “who don’t get to vote” while ratepayers foot the bill. Without resolving governance and funding, he warned, the well-built structure “might just go nowhere.”
What operators should watch
For accommodation providers, event organisers and hospitality businesses in tourist-heavy regions, the practical question is simple: if councils must do more but can’t raise rates, who pays? The most concrete answer on the table is Tapsell’s proposal for an accommodation register that would bring Airbnb-style operators into the rating net. Done well, that could ease the load on traditional accommodation businesses already paying rates and levies, rather than piling more cost onto them.
Tourism Industry Aotearoa CEO Rebecca Ingram called the statement a “major milestone” and urged cross-party support, a signal that industry knows the plan’s durability depends on political commitment beyond this term. The policy is well-designed. The test is whether the councils and RTOs businesses rely on for marketing, events and infrastructure get the resources to actually deliver it, or whether Wellington has simply written a job description and left the invoice with the regions.
Sources
- New tourism plan recognises councils are more than rubbish, roads and water (2026-07-13)
- Tourism policy outlines role of government and industry (2026-06-25)
- Tourism Policy Statement sets sector direction (2026-06-25)
- Regional Tourism New Zealand calls on all parties to commit to implementing the Tourism Policy Statement (2026-07-14)
- Tourism Satellite Account – Tourism Evidence and Insights Centre (2025)