Aiming for visitor carbon neutral

Queenstown, viewed by many as the adventure capital of the world, is angling for a new mantle. By the end of 2030, it wants to be the world’s first carbon zero visitor economy.

It’s an audacious but essential call for Destination Queensland chief executive Mat Woods, with climate change impacting seasons and making weather less predictable for tourism activities and experiences.

“We could aim for carbon neutral, net zero, or carbon zero,” Mat explains.

“Carbon neutral is lazy. It’s just buying offsets. That doesn’t involve any behaviour change or innovation, so that was off the table. We purposely went with the hardest thing.

“If you start to think about 2030 all of a sudden, you do create some real urgency.”

The vision for regenerative tourism is laid out in the Queenstown Lakes’ Destination Management Plan – Travel to a Thriving Future – a partnership between Destination Queenstown, Lake Wanaka Tourism and Queenstown Lakes District Council.

In 2020, tourism accounted for 39 per cent of GDP and 52 per cent of employment in the Queenstown Lakes economy, according to economic intelligence and forecasting services Infometrics. The Lakes region hosts an estimated four million visitors annually, with three million of those visiting Queenstown, which has a population of just 35,000.

COVID border closures offered a rare chance to pause and reflect on what a better future could look like for tourism operators and residents alike.

“In January 2020 we had a peak of visitor numbers in Queenstown Lakes and we lost our social licence,” Mat says.

“Our community was pushing back and saying: it feels too busy, there’s too much congestion, there’s too much impact on our environment. What’s in it for us.”

As a starting point, residents were asked what they loved and treasured about the region and how they wanted it to look like for future generations.

From there, the plan was developed encompassing economic, cultural, social and environmental pillars.

While it can be challenging to get government, business and residents on the same page, the plan has received universal support. Stakeholders agree that to become a regenerative destination, they need to change the way they do tourism, and that includes decarbonising.

“I think part of Queenstown’s DNA is we have these incredibly brave operators here that appear to give new ideas and innovation a go,” says Mat.

Queenstown already lays claim to the world’s first commercial bungy operation, being the birthplace of tandem paragliding, inventing jet boating and opening New Zealand’s first commercial ski resort.

While the goal is to make the visitor economy carbon zero Mat hopes this spills over to the whole of Queenstown.

“We are at his real tipping point where there’s real economic benefits to moving to electric vehicles and electrification of machinery,” he says, adding they are cheaper to run and better for the environment.

He cites the example of Shotover Jet, the iconic adventure thrill ride through the Shotover River canyons.

It’s owned by Ngai Tahu Tourism, which is in turn owned by the Ngai Tahu Iwi, the biggest Maori tribe in the South Island. Ngai Tahu aim to make as little impact on the environment as they can, but a 2018 study revealed half of Ngāi Tahu Tourism’s carbon footprint was coming from petrol being burnt by its jet boats.

In a world-first, Shotover Jet has finished prototype testing an electric jet boat. It intends to eventually electrify its entire fleet, then share what it has learned with the industry, to have a bigger impact on climate change.

Mat’s excited by the prospect of leveraging tourism to diversity the economy and exporting electric jet boats to the world.

It would be remiss not to address aviation emissions as part of Queenstown’s big picture.

“If we think about aviation, which is the hardest nut to crack when we set out on this journey, there were a couple of great announcements to help us,” Mat says.

“First and foremost, Air New Zealand announced they would have their first electric test flight by 2026 (a Beta ALIA aircraft), and by 2030 they would have regional electric flights. So, they gave us confidence that our national carrier is moving rapidly towards new technology.”

Mat says long haul will move towards using Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF), from plant and animal waste sources.

“It’s not the silver bullet because SAF is always a blend and most aircraft use a 70:30 blend of aviation fuel with SAF. But if you start to use SAF with a modern aircraft that is running at lower emissions, then you’re starting to reduce those emissions too. So those hard to abate emissions become less and less.”

To support the plan, destination marketing will shift to target high contributing visitors, who stay longer, go further and make deeper connections with the community.

“If a visitor stays longer, as opposed to having a different visitor coming every day,

we’re not actually bringing the same amount of carbon,” Mat says

Ensuring the cultural and historical narratives are correct and telling more authentic stories of people and place is also vital to the plan, like those of first Maori who came to the area for food gathering and in search of sacred pounamu (New Zealand greenstone).

“All through our history, we’ve got these brave pioneers facing hardship for

reward, using this as a place of learning,” Mat says.

fact file

Destination Queenstown: queenstownnz.co.nz

Travel to a Thriving Future: regenerativetourism.co.nz

Shotover Jet: shotoverjet.com