New Zealand looks to the future of climate-friendly travel

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Devastating wildfires on Maui, flooding in Vermont, Canada’s worst wildfire year on record, extreme heat in the U.S., Europe and beyond. If this summer’s headlines are any indication of our planet’s future, and they likely are, changing the way we travel to minimize our impact on the planet is a goal that can’t be achieved a moment too soon.

Last year, a committee of three popular New Zealand destinations announced an ambitious project to make their tourism economy carbon-zero by the end of 2030.

As of publication, Destination Queenstown, Lake Wānaka Tourism and Queenstown Lakes District Council – all part of the Queenstown Lakes Destination Management Steering Group – have 2,620 days to meet their goal of, among other things, electrifying tour boats, minimizing waste from hotels and redesigning tourist experiences to contribute to achieving net zero.

“You need to know the number of days left because every day you have to ask yourself, ‘What have I done today to make sure we get there?’” said Mat Woods, Destination Queenstown’s chief executive officer.

Part of the impetus for the project was concern from residents that the region isn’t getting back what it puts into its tourism industry. “You’ve got a population in Queenstown and Lake Wānaka of 50,000 people with three million visitors,” Woods said of the annual visitor numbers. “How do 50,000 people fund three million visitors? That’s a big strain on our infrastructure.”

For international travellers, Queenstown is the second most visited place in the country (Auckland, where all international flights arrive and depart from, is the first). It’s a dream for adventure and nature enthusiasts. As a mountainous region, it’s a hub for skiing in the winter. In warmer weather, visitors come for mountain biking, hiking, golf and water-based activities, whether it’s kayaking, fishing or zooming around on a jet boat.

The surprising benefits of zip-lining

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The challenge for Woods and his tourism colleagues in Queenstown Lakes is figuring out how to offer the area’s trademark tourism experiences while achieving net zero. That involves overcoming the logistics, such as, say, finding fuel-free jet boats – and also attracting tourists who are on board for a climate-adapted experience.

There are some instances where the transition, as far as the tourist experience is concerned, will be negligible. Ziplining, for instance, has a fairly minimal footprint. Though Trent Yeo, executive director and owner of Ziptrek Ecotours, said that’s by design. When he started the company in 2009, he based his operations at the top of Queenstown’s existing gondola. “You design into the system, you don’t design a new system,” he said.

That location means there’s no need to trek people from their office to their course. The platform infrastructure to get up to the ziplines is wood, and the activity itself is gravity-powered. The team knows that, on average, each guest’s trip uses 3.6 kilograms of carbon. The company also tracks its transport, electricity, waste, business travel, energy and supplies to calculate its carbon footprint so it can reduce or offset it.

To do that, the team purchases certified carbon credits that support the growth and protection of the South Island forest.

RealNZ is another tourism operator in the area – though as of two years ago it refers to itself as a conservation organization powered by tourism. Among its offerings are rafting, jet boat tours, farm visits and dining and tours of Lake Wakatipu on the historic TSS Earnslaw steamship.

It operates hundreds of vehicles, dozens of water vessels and ski fields. “A couple of years ago we started looking at how we consume energy. What do we do with water? And what about our uniforms? What about food and wine and beer and all the things that go with it? All the way down to the life cycle of all of our assets,” Stephen England-Hall, then CEO of RealNZ, said earlier this year.

Some changes have been easy to implement and took effect before the region’s tourism sector decided to take on the net zero goal.

“On the mountains, we’ve had a commitment to zero waste to landfill for a number of years. There’s no single-use plastics, there’s no disposable coffee cups. If you want a cup of coffee, you just sit down and have your coffee. We used to joke about it. Why would you put take-away coffee cups on a mountain? Where are you going to go?” said England-Hall.

For others, the company has to wait for technology to become more reliable. Electrification of the TSS Earnslaw, which is responsible for 1 per cent of all emissions in the region, is in the works, and England-Hall said the company is looking into electric jet boats. “The biggest expense of running a jet boat is fuel, right? So if you can eliminate the fuel that’s a much better product. It’s quieter, a better experience for the customer, and better for our team to drive them,” he said. Maori-owned regenerative tourism company Ngāi Tahu Tourism runs Shotover Jet, offering adrenaline-amped jet boat tours of the region, and is already piloting an electric boat.

DIY meals and shorter showers

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Hotels are another important part of this transition. The biggest sources of their waste is food and beverage. The bar at the Sherwood, an upscale motel in Queenstown, is sending zero waste to landfill (its restaurant will soon achieve that goal), with organic waste going back into its own garden. Guest rooms are equipped with kitchens fully stocked with dishes, cookware, fridge and stovetop, meaning there’s less of a need to dine out, and rooms and common areas have clearly labelled bins for different kinds of recycling and organic waste. Importantly, one is labelled “landfill.” There’s no escaping where a piece of garbage is headed every time you see that word on the bin.

The hotel was refurbished using recycled, upcycled and carbon negative products, and uses solar energy (with 100 per cent renewable energy when additional power is needed). And most of the food the restaurant uses comes from domestic producers, with three-quarters of that from the South Island.

Headwaters Eco Lodge, in the nearby town of Glenorchy, takes things even further – with compostable toilets and timed showers. To be clear, this isn’t a campsite, but a luxury lodge with 14 boutique chalets for guests. The bathrooms have heated floors and a spacious walk-in rain shower, but instead of turning the taps and letting the water run, guests press a button to start the water, and it stops after seven minutes. The odourless, waterless toilets use technology from a company based in Montana, and each has its own composting unit with compost turned regularly and eventually used on the lodge’s land.

Thanks to solar power, the property is net zero. It has sophisticated water recycling infrastructure, which means it uses 50 per cent less water than similar hotels and waste water is directed to surrounding wetlands. And an on-site garden, which includes 100 fruit trees, grows much of the produce its kitchen staff use for the hotel’s famous dining room.

While these features are drawing guests, they’re also helping general manager John Dick attract and retain staff – something the global industry continues to struggle with.

“Applicants tell me, I want to be inspired. I want to work with a company that’s making a difference. I want to learn.”

The elephant in the net-zero hotel room: air travel

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There’s no getting around the impact of flying, but help is on the way from the national airline. Air New Zealand announced in late 2022 it was working with partners to create zero-emissions flying options. The first goal is a demonstration flight that uses electric, hybrid or green hydrogen by 2026. And by 2030, replacing the airline’s domestic fleet for short-haul flights with planes that use sustainable power.

Second, Queenstown Lakes is intentionally not trying to increase the number of tourists they welcome. Prepandemic, 70 per cent of tourists the region hosted were international while 30 per cent were domestic. Now, more than a year into the border being opened after COVID restrictions lifted, 60 per cent of visitors are domestic. Of the 40 per cent who are international, half are Australian. Flights from most major Australian cities to Auckland or Queenstown take three hours, and according to Air New Zealand, a three-hour sustainably powered flight could be possible by 2030.

As for the remaining 20 per cent of people coming from abroad, Woods said the region is seeking “high-contributing visitors,” and targeting those who want slower, more in-depth travel experiences through marketing and working with others similarly aligned in the industry, such as tour operators and travel agents.

“That doesn’t mean that you’re spending lots of money,” Woods said. “You could be a backpacker who’s high contributing, you could stay here for a long time, go further afield, come out to different places.” In other words, tourists intent on exploring more deeply rather than visiting to snap a photo for Instagram.

“We feel a responsibility,” said Woods. “There’s a real leadership role for Queenstown, to lead this for the rest of the country. If Queenstown can do this, then everyone else can do this.”

According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, worldwide tourism numbers next year are expected to exceed those from 2019, prepandemic, which means more folks will be hitting the road than ever. There are lessons to be found in what Queenstown Lakes is doing, which tourists can adopt in whatever destination they choose – minimizing car use by staying at a hotel that’s walking distance from the attractions they want to visit; making use of the fridge in the hotel room and eating out less; travelling with a reusable cup; perhaps most importantly, taking fewer trips and staying longer. After the climate emergencies we saw around the globe this summer, there’s no denying that the time to change habits is now.

The writer was a guest of Tourism New Zealand, which did not approve or review this story.