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July 23, 2025 3 mins

More and more Kiwis are taking a hike, with 60% of visitors to our Great Walks made up of New Zealanders last summer.  

The Department of Conservation's latest visitor insights report shows 60 thousand people walked one of the trails.  

International visitor numbers last summer were back to 93% of pre-Covid levels, with more than 50% heading to a national park during their stay. 

Federated Mountain Clubs President Megan Dimozantos told Ryan Bridge this isn't a surprise. 

She says we live in such a beautiful country, so why not get out in it? 

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good news for our dock sites. This morning. More than
six hundred thousand beds were being booked at dock huts,
campsites and great walks over the summer, bringing in more
than thirteen million bucks. DOC says sixty percent of those
walk the tracks were domestic travelers. That's up twelve percent
on the summer before. Meghan Demos aantos as president of
the Federated Mountain Clubs joining me this morning. Hi, Meghan,

(00:22):
sure to Ryan, good to have you on the show.
So is this just because we've got more key we
was doing it or fewer you know, foreign tourists here.
What's the situation?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Well, I think you may have also noticed that DOC
said that they were back to ninety three percent of
their pre COVID level. So I don't think it's because
there's there's less international tourists here that I guess. We
live in such a beautiful country, so why not get
out in it? But yeah, I guess there's probably a

(00:51):
couple of reasons. And I think the ease of getting
information to start out in the grade outdoors is is
relatively easy. You know, there's relatively low barriers to entry,
and I think I think that's that's one of the
main reasons why we're seeing more and more people pick
it up.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Yeah, it's interesting this report says that fifty percent of
foreigners who come here ahead to a national park, which
is great, and also that the tourism on public conservation
land is actually worth three and a half billion dollars
a year.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
I know, wouldn't it be great to see more a
figure more commensurate to that come through in the budget
for DOC as well. Well.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
I was going to ask you, do you think we're
charging enough for the dock huts, the nightly stay. I mean,
we would probably need to subsidize people who couldn't afford it,
But do you think if they're always full or near full,
do we charge more so that we can fix the tracks?

Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah. Look, it's an interesting debate to have, and like
you mentioned, it's really important that we don't that we
don't price people out of their own backyard. I think
that probably a question that that should also be asked
is whether potentially dock providing an opportunity that's a little

(02:12):
bit too elaborate as well. You know, I think that
toning down their service standards would be the equivalent to
charging more and people would still have a great experience.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
What what do you mean, get rid of the toilet paper?

Speaker 2 (02:26):
No, not real. I mean I mean I think things
like you know, if you if you look at the
cost of when of of of the build of great
wall cuts and tracks, and they have really hyper kilometer
cost compared to other types of tracks, but also things
like providing gas and huts, which costs a lot of

(02:49):
money because you have to fid in providing split firewood.
You know, potentially they could look at providing rounds that
people split on site themselves, which is all part of
the experiences then in the back country. So I think
that there's a few ways that the department could avoid
having to keep increasing prices.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Interesting, Meghan, that's a really I hadn't thought of that before.
But there is always cut firewood, isn't there, And often
if it's a busy hart, there's gas. That is Meghan Demosantos,
the president of Federated Mountain Clubs, talking about those numbers
of dock huts, how would you feel turning up and
having to cut your own firewood? I mean you couldn't
do it in some conditions obviously.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
For more from early edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live
to news talks it'd be from five am weekdays, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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