Tourism Security: Protecting visitors protecting ‘Brand New Zealand’

New Zealand’s border is opening and the tourism sector is awakening from a two-year hiatus. With the opportunities comes with the challenge of ensuring that tourist security is up to the mark, writes Nicholas Dynon.

Decisions by Cabinet to allow all fully vaccinated travellers from Australia from 12 April, and visa waiver countries from 1 May without needing to self-isolate – and the scrapping of pre-departure tests from 20 June – have paved the way for the return of international tourism.

Although great news for the New Zealand economy and for the many businesses dependent on that sector, government ministers conceded that we shouldn’t be bracing ourselves for a sudden influx of tourists. A recent study by money.co.uk listed New Zealand’s post-Covid tourism recovery as the world’s 12th slowest.

Transport Minister Michael Wood announced in March that the Government had agreed to an additional $250 million to support flights from 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023 under the Maintaining International Air Connectivity (MIAC) scheme.

“Even now as we look forward to welcoming overseas visitors back to our shores, the number of passenger flights into New Zealand is only a quarter of pre-COVID levels, and many of those planes still carry few passengers,” he said.

It’s a point echoed by Tourism Minister Stuart Nash in his 25 March speech to the Otago University Tourism Policy School. With some countries’ borders remaining closed and travel costs elevated, we “know that the impact of COVID-19 will continue to be felt, and international visitors from some big markets are not likely to return in large numbers straight away,” he stated.

“It’s now more important than ever that we focus on tourism’s ability to inspire and change lives as a key part of our world-leading brand,” he continued. “To attract these visitors, we will need to make a concerted effort to live our brand.”

Post-COVID tourism is shaping up to be more competitive than prior to the pandemic, with travellers thinking harder than ever about where to spend their money. According to Mr Nash, if we don’t ‘live the brand’, “no amount of crazy scenery and breath-taking experiences will lift us above many other destinations around the world.”

Traditionally safe destination

While the New Zealand brand is all about beautiful scenery and all things ‘pure’, it’s also informed by Aotearoa’s ranking as one of the safest countries on the planet.

According to the recently published 2021 Global Peace Index (GPI), New Zealand is the second safest country in the world, and the safest in the Asia-Pacific region.

The GPI uses 23 qualitative and quantitative indicators, and measures the state of peace across three domains: the level of Societal Safety and Security; the extent of Ongoing Domestic and International Conflict; and the degree of Militarisation. By comparison, Australia currently sits in 16th place.

In terms of the index’s Societal Safety and Security domain, which is the domain that covers crime, New Zealand ranks a very respectable 11th – and still above Australia at 17th. But of the GPI’s three domains, it’s our worst performing one.

And the statistics are telling us that property crimes are on the increase. According to a 8th March Stuff article, data released by police “showed within the first 11 months of 2021, dairy and convenience store theft was up 30 per cent on 2020 figures, and burglaries were up nearly 20 per cent.”

In other words, 1,402 more thefts were reported in New Zealand in 2021 than the year before. Auckland was the worst-hit region, with retail offences rising 25.8 percent, with Waikato’s rising by 19.7 percent and Christchurch by 14.2 percent.

Tourists vulnerable to crime

According to a report by the European Forum for Urban Security, there is an “unwelcome but close relationship” between tourism and crime. “Although there are very few studies on this topic, research has shown that tourists are particularly at risk of suffering crime.”

A 2019 article in Security & Defence Quarterly titled “The impact of crime on security in tourism” provides some insights into why this might be the case.

“Separated in an unknown environment from various forms of social support and protection which they have at home, and from a network of family and friends who can help them, tourists can easily become crime victims,” state the article’s authors Hrvoje Mataković and Ivana Cunjak Mataković.

Tourists tend to be ‘lucrative targets’ as they often carry largerthen-usual amounts of money, credit cards, and attractive belongings that can be readily resold. Tourists can also be more careless than usual for the simple fact that they are on vacation, and they can be more inclined to engage in risk-taking behaviour compared to when they’re at home.

Impact of crime on tourism

The effects of crime on tourists, observed Hrvoje and Ivana Cunjak Mataković, differ according to (i) the type of crime in question and (ii) individual tourist perceptions of crime, safety and risk:

1. Type of crime: Violent crime, including robbery, assaults, rapes or killings have much more negative effects on tourists than property crime, especially if stolen goods are of smaller value. There is no difference in the likelihood of revisiting the destination where the theft occurred, among those who personally experienced theft as well as those who know someone who experienced theft on a journey.

2. Perceptions of safety and risk: studies have found that tourists with more extensive international travel experience are more likely to have a lower risk perception, as are tourists who are wealthier and more educated. Older tourists are more likely than younger tourists to be concerned about personal security.

Interestingly, the article authors found that although property crime victimisation will not necessarily impact on a tourist’s inclination to return to a destination, the media can sway opinions. Intensive mass media coverage of security incidents contributes to the decline of tourist visits to affected destinations, and thus the media “has the potential to make or break a destination.”

Ultimately, they conclude that there is strong evidence that crime can have a very negative impact on tourism, that security in tourism cannot be “taken for granted”, and that therefore “it is necessary to make significant efforts (both financial and organisational) to ensure a safe environment for tourists.”

These include designing and implementing measures aimed at reducing the opportunities for emergence of crime and tourist victimisation, and enable assistance to victims when crimes are committed.

As New Zealand’s tourism sector emerges battered from the existential struggles of Covid-19, it is faced with several risks: from the slow pace of recovery to the challenge of securing adequate numbers of skilled staff. In this mix are the very real risks posed by the potential of rising criminality due to the increasing costs of living and other post-Covid uncertainties.

Tourists are low hanging fruit for opportunistic criminals. If an increase in crimes against tourists was to materialise to the extent that it drew the attention of the news media, it could present a bruising blow to ‘Brand New Zealand’ and the many tourism operators that rely on its good name.