great walks fees for foreigners up to double price

My father in law has this problem with the UK and it wont be solved unless he returns there. When he was over there a few years ago he borrowed his sisters car and got a speed camera ticket. This arrived after he left to return to New Zealand. Over there demerits are added to speed camera tickets so his sister gave his details and the ticket duely turned up in Porirua a few weeks later. He rings the number on the ticket and asked where he could pay it in person. As there is no NZ agent for UK Police they agreed that it will become payable at the airport next time he visits the UK if that ever happens.

Is it the bureaucracy that's the problem, then? A criminal fine imposed by a court (probably what the Punakaiki chap had) isn't from the same place as a DOC fine. Both are separate from a fine imposed by a local council. What systems exist to consolidate the info about fines owed, and what systems exist to enable someone at an airport to know about these fines, then collect them, then channel the payment back to wherever it was issued from? This should be basic stuff, but seemingly it isn't.

How do airlines would do the difference between someone on a work visa / resident visa and someone on a tourist visa? I don't that they have access to that kind of info? As for that hilarious french guy (I didn't see that he was also charged with stealing a sleeping bag, thanks that was a good laugh!), he wasn't stopped at the airport but arrested by police and had his passport confiscated. If they hadn't confiscated his passport, he would had probably been able to leave without paying. Sad but true. Apparently he didn't even pay for the damage, but someone donated the money for him, so I don't think this is a very good example. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11715716 And if you are looking for money, maybe you should create a tax on airports instead? FIY the Auckland Airport profit last year was more than $300 millions dollars… As always, there's always plenty of money everywhere, but never for the important stuff…

No I was talking about adding a departure/arrival tax at airport, I think either you do it for everyone or you do it for no one but you can't really target only tourists. Plus there's already an airport tax on the price of the plane ticket. Of course if you wanted to enforce paying of outstanding debts/fines at airports it would have to be for everyone, or it wouldn't be legal. But I still think this is not something that will happen any day soon, as it would be very expensive to enforce, and I don't see the point in using $2000 in taxpayers money to recover a $200 fine (for example). But I also don't see the point in paying millions to put in jail people who just have stolen a few hundreds (or just food sometimes), and that doesn't stop jails from being built so I might be wrong on that one.

if people htink tourists are being hard done by, by paying a one off $20 tax, go to Bhutan. You have to book your holiday in advance through approved travel agents and you must book at least US$200 worth of services per day.... their country isnt over run by tourists messing up the countryside and not contributing much to the infrastructure . they are able to manage their tourism through this system and provide enough infrastrucre. you cant swamp the country with tourists because the service capacity has to be there in advance for them to book before they get into the country... compare bhutan to nepal, where nepal is a free for all and too many tourists over stretch the infrastructure and mess up the countryside. yeh bhutan doesnt get budget backpackers at all. they are targeting a niche tourist group, its still a country relatively unspoilt by over development...

Yes, and it has been such a huge success for Bhutan, in 2015 they earned a total of 119.00 million dollars from tourism. That is $27 million more than the tourism powerhouse of Afghanistan.

depends when you go to bhutan as to what you have to spend low season is $200 a day minimum spend high season $250 http://www.tourism.gov.bt/plan/minimum-daily-package

given people are spending hundreds or thousands on airfares to get to nz and most are spending thousands on holidays, they can cough up the extra tax. the current govt arent going to fund conservation adequately. they have made DOC a shell of its former self.. the other option is another govt come into power and do fund the conservation estate adequately, one way or the other.

Following my earlier comment, I've heard back from Richard Davies at the Recreation, Tourism and Heritage Unit of DOC, regarding the break-down of what the $11.4 million for online services is to be spent on. Richard writes: ======== Thanks for your email. As you may know the budget package was broadly trying to achieve two things. The first was to ensure that we can continue to provide a great experience for visitors at our busiest places – where increasing numbers of New Zealanders and international visitors want to go, and where this extra use places an additional cost on the department and an extra strain on the quality of experience. The second was to try and shift New Zealand and international visitors to lesser used places. DOC has a lot of places that have capacity for people to visit (even at peak time) and many communities in New Zealand would love to have more visitors, but at the moment the patterns of use are really well entrenched and we’re going to need to do something different to try and shift those (note, we’re not talking about shifting people into remoter and harder places, we’re talking about under-utilised front country sites, and even some of the Great Walks have capacity). The improvements to our online services are intended to address both of these. This package of work will make it easier for people to find out about what is out there to see and do (this is always one of the biggest barriers to people participating), make it easier for people to arrange their trips and also enable us to better communicate some of the expectations/responsibilities on visitors (especially first timers). The work includes: * Upgrading the software the DOC website uses, to bring it up to modern standards/functionality. This will enable us to better tailor content for users, improve trip planning with integration of better maps, help with regional dispersal by promoting lesser known recreation opportunities and help target messages to different audience groups. * Development of APIs to enable others to use/share our content. DOC sits on a lot of content that other agencies/partners/businesses can use but we can’t share it easily. This will enable others to pull our content into their own digital channels. It will help amplify our messages about different places to visit and avoid people just visiting the busy places because that’s all they know about. They’ll include the safety alerts posted to the website, ensuring a wider audience for this critical information. * Implement a Digital Asset Management system. This would allow DOC to share DOC copyrighted images with partners/businesses/researchers/public for reuse. It would also allow people to upload and share images with DOC. * A new booking service. This is currently going through the procurement process. The current booking system is at end of life and needs to be replaced. The exact costs and the breakdown of them will be dependent on business case and procurement processes. The booking service is the number one priority. Cheers Richard Davies

you can share images with DOC. why? so they can reuse them for free to advertise their eco tourism business?