great walks fees for foreigners up to double price

Right now, when you make your online booking for a great walk, you already have to physically walk into the DOC office and pick up the official tickets to show to the hut warden. Nothing's going to change there so Im not sure why you guys are making a big deal about it. The onus has always been on the rangers in the DOC office to get proof of your identity and nationality, not the wardens at the hut. You won't have to go tramping with your passport. And yes, the doubling in price is stupid. I'm fairly sure this came up a few months back. Universal border tax makes much more sense.

I would say most comments on the Wilderness Magazine Facebook post are negative: https://www.facebook.com/Wildernessmag/?hc_ref=ARRdO-hnaNDGXu8UJMCOvvLO_fbeSA5Wj4a-crCCYfywO-SQNhigr_lTVzdkkrTP21s&fref=nf If the MSM starts counting and I'm only allowed yes or no, you can count me in the against camp.

Could this be a case of supply and demand? There is only one Milford Track and a big supply of people willing to pay whatever to walk it. Remember Routburn Milford and Tongarero are no longer wilderness walks. They are theme parks. Disneyworld sets their price by what enough people to fill the place are willing to pay not what it costs to run.

Actually as a foreigner, I never take my passport on hikes if I can leave it somewhere safe instead (like at home), as it's just more likely that I would lose it/damage it on a hike than tucked in a drawer at home. And to get a new one I would need to take two days off work an fly from Auckland to Wellington on 2 different days, quite a pain. All in all would cost me along the lines of $500. So yeah I think I'm not the only one. As to getting a NZ driver license, just did it form today, anyone can do it, don't need to be a resident or whatever, you just pay $52, show your passport and foreign driver license and a few days/weeks later you get a NZ driver license. So I don't see what it would prove? If they're using the license there will be some people who will see that you can get 50% off great walks bookings with just $52 and 2 hours of paperwork at the AA/VTNZ branch…

to book the great walks for the popular sumer season you often have to book well in advance, for foreigners that will mean booking well ahead of their holiday if they are just here for a holiday... so they will have to book from overseas online... one way of identifying foreigners to charge them more

@krieg - yes guilty as charged. Like yourself I am indeed a foreigner. I should come out and say I strongly oppose differential charging for foreigners. I oppose it because I see it as yet another step down the road to intolerance of foreigners that seems to have become the fashion, trend, snowball, avalanche of late. See brexit, Trump, Australian immigration policy, etc if you wonder what I'm on about. I also oppose it because it is a practice that I have only encountered in the third world and associate strongly with the third world (where it is, at least, a little more justified due to the 100fold income differential of locals and tourists). I also oppose it because of reciprocity. International relations are built around reciprocal treatment of citizens, and as we slide down this slippery slope we pretty-much force other countries to treat us, and each other, in the same way. A positive feedback loop of intolerance and differentiation based on nationality. I'm not sure quite what these principals have to do with being a foreigner. Nor do I see how I have failed to think about them long and hard. But maybe you can educate me on the obvious fallacies of my arguments that make them so clearly not thought out. Now - after that clear statement of my moral stance, I can muddy the water. I want us to spend more on conservation. I want us to spend more on recreation. I want to see numbers on great walks limited in some equitable way. I want great walks to pay for themselves. And I want to see those people who cannot afford $140 a night to still have the opportunity to get to see what's in their own backyard. So: feel free to up the price to $140 a night. Feel free to make the 'free for kids' more closely targeted e.g. to those living or studying in NZ. Feel free to expand the discount / free scheme to other sections of society (community service card holders, gold card holders, etc). But do not just come out and say 'we are going to charge foreigners more because they are foreign'. That is a step, slippery slope with a large cliff at the bottom.

@Kreig you don't need to have a proven fixed address, you can get it delivered to a hostel. And most people stay a while before travelling, to make some cash, so not really a big thing. But I bet that most people will just prefer to "free-camp" along great walks instead of paying for that kind of loophole. And we still don't know how a "foreigner" will be judged by DOC so far, so maybe the driver license won't be enough. Furthermore, not everyone knows how to drive and have a license. I have to agree with @madpom that this just seems like another one of the xenophobic ideas exploited by politicians to reject issues created by them (diminishing the DOC budget) on an easy scapegoat. I'm not sure that kiwis would appreciate if when they came to Paris every shop charged them double because they are foreigners (and that would be a lot as Paris shops are already charging double than everywhere else in France ;-) ). Same with huts in Europe, we charge the same whatever your nationality is, and even better you get the local alpine club discount if you are a member of an alpine club of another country… I'm having the same thought when people here complain that foreigners don't pay for search and rescue, but in France we have professional SAR paid by our taxes too, and they are free of charge for everyone (though Switzerland is an exception here). BTW in Switzerland usually a night in a hut is 30-55 NZD, or 70-110 including dinner and breakfast (and hot showers). Alpine club members pay less than that. So I don't really see the point in the great walks huts being that pricy, as they definitely don't match the level of service you would get in Europe for a cheaper price… Sure the scenery is great, but it's not like the European alps were ugly either…

the problem with the great walks is the predominance of foreigners booking them out, you can get large school groups filling up the huts and they pay nothing towards the tracks... the great walks are a good family experience but its becoming highly competitive to get on them during school holidays... residence pay tax towards the tracks and struggle to get access to them. they are charging extra for a handful of tracks and people are crying xenophobia... although what did DOC and the govt expect to happen with the great walks , since they were highly advertised around the world on tourism campaigns.... the tracks became a victim of their own success... the capacity isnt there to cope with the numbers that were brought in by the marketing

Xenophobia: mass noun. Dislike of or prejudice against people from other countries. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/xenophobia

@krieg. Thanks for the reasoned reply. Re Brexit, Trump & Manus - the similarities to this policy are not the policies themselves but the language of intolerance and bigotry in which they are couched. Re getting more money for conservation - I think we all agree here. But not at the expense of what is morally right. You could easily introduce a policy with exactly the same financial effect on moire or less the same people without pandering to the bigots and stoking the fires of xenophobia. e.g: - Double the price of great walk huts across the board - Limit the free kids to those studying at NZ schools (' furthering the education we provide our kids about their environment') - Offer 50% discounts to anyone who can show they receive NZ benefit or can produce an IR3 / PTS ('to reward taxpayers for their contribution to the economy') <b>Now, to be clear - I don't actually believe the above policy is the best answer to the problem. </b>But the above policy would have exactly the same financial effect (apart from a few outliers) as the one we are discussing without being about differentiating based on race, ethnicity, foreignness or any other such bigotry. There's enough distrust, jealousy & hatred out there at the moment without our politicians adopting their language.