New Zealand’s prime minister is threatening to close down adventure tour operators who don’t comply to new regulations amid fears that the sector could be destroyed by bad publicity.
The new rules, which required operators to register with WorkSafe NZ by the start of this month, were introduced in 2011 following 37 deaths in a little over four years.
However, 272 companies are yet to be registered, risking fines of several thousand NZ dollars a day.
Prime minister John Key, who is also tourism minister, said he was ‘deadly serious’ about closing down those that don’t comply.
"Mark my words, the legal requirements on those operators, if they are in breach of the law, can get very serious and it will be extremely serious if it starts getting into a criminal action for negligence," Key said at a Tourism Industry Association meeting.
"In the end if the United States market and the UK market and the Asian markets start running stories that New Zealand’s adventure tourism is not safe, it will, in the end, destroy the sector."
