Tania Tapsell: Rotorua Mayor says local councils should get a share of the increased international visitor levy

Local councils want to clip the ticket on the Government's increased tourism fee.

The International Visitor Levy has been bumped from $35 to $100 as of today.

Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell says local councils pay for tourism amenities, so the Government should share the profits.

She told Heather du Plessis Allan while the Government may not want to share a cut of the increased fee, it's worth asking.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
So the international visitor levy went up today. Yesterday it
costs tourists thirty five bucks to enter the country. Today
it's going to sting them one hundred bucks. And now
councils want to share of that new money. In fact,
I mean, let's put this honestly, they want all of
that new money. It all to do is Mayor Tanya
tapsle is with us now, Heitania, good morning. Councils are dreaming,
aren't they, Tania.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
I We've got to try. We've got to try. Look,
can I congratulate our Ministers of Tourism and Conservation on
finding a way to increase investment into tourism. But you know,
councils are the ones that actually invest in this infrastructure,
that's our local rate players. I think it's fair enough
to say, hey, can you share the love?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Yeah, I mean I can see that, and there'll be
a lot of sympathy for that. If you were to
if they were to come around to the idea of
giving you the sixty five bucks, which is obviously not
going to happen, how would you share that any case?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Well, look for us, it's back to basics. So for
a government that's asking us to invest in orders and
core infrastructure. It's things like public toilets. But you know,
even in Mackenzie District, just to clean the public toilets
it's used by tourists. Added one percent to this year's
rights bill, so it is quite significant for us to
maintain these facilities and also the environment that tourists use. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
The difficulty that you guys have got, obviously is that
councils not necessarily yours time. Yeah, but other councils are
doing quite a good job of telling the public that
you guys don't know how to spend money.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Would you accept that, Yeah, I would accept that it
or should is doing a pretty good job. But yeah,
other places we haven't seen great investment and infrastructure. But
the reality is we don't get enough money to do
so we rely on our local community.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Is the difficulty, right? If you guys aren't getting enough money,
and I accept you don't have enough money, then how
on earth have you got councils like Hasting's District Council
deciding to give unelected youth voting rights and paying them
for that right. How have you got councils like Wellington
City Council deciding to spend about six hundred thousand dollars
on redesigning the footpath for a bi crack. If you
don't have enough money, you shouldn't have enough money for
that stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Well, the importance is the request will be ring fenced,
So we're saying that International visitor Levey, if you give
us a share of that, it will be ring sense
for tourism infrastructure only, which is a pretty massive issue
for many of us. So in order to do our
populations well almost eighty thousand. We get over ten thousand
visitors a day when we're in our peak season, So

(02:19):
it makes sense for us to not burden our local communities,
which some of our communities across the country that get
a lot of tourists do not actually highly populated areas,
which is one of the big concerns. And we're just saying, hey, look,
instead of this getting stucked up into conservation areas, potentially
predator programs on remote islands in places, let's just make
sure there's transparency on where the money goes. Local councils

(02:41):
can help with that.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
How do you rate your chances.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
I'm gonna give it a go. We give it a go.
I think it's an important issue. We love our homes,
we love our environment. Not just for visitors, also for locals.
We need to make sure that they're keeping up there.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Good on. God loves to try it, Donya, thank you
very much. Turn your taps will ull through Asbeth. For
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