Hayes Joanne: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHayes Joanne: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 22 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18256. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]9.JOANNE HAYES (National) to theMinister of Tourism: What recent investments has this Government made to grow the tourism sector in New Zealand?Hon TODD McCLAY (Associate Minister of Tourism) on behalf of theMinister of Tourism: Just this week we announced that the Government’s Tourism Growth Partnership is investing $3.84 million in six innovative tourism projects that will create jobs in New Zealand. This is in addition to the $23 million in co-funding for the applicants making a total of $26.84 million of new investment in the tourism industry. The six projects areRotorua’s Skyline Gravity Park Auckland Airport’s food and wine cluster project New Zealand Ski’s virtual guest services platform The Orange Group’s project to target Chinese visitors the Christchurch Adventure Park andBachcare’s online holiday rental project. These projects represent a potential industry investment of $6 for every $1 invested by the Government. This is a great return.Joanne Hayes: When the Minister made this announcement atTrenz New Zealand’s largest tourism trade show this week what was the mood of the industry?Mr SPEAKER: In as far as there is ministerial responsibility the Hon Todd McClay.Hon TODD McCLAY: The mood of the industry is purely a ministerial responsibility. The industry is in good heart. This year 250 New Zealand tourism businesses exhibited atTrenz and 250 buyers from around the world attended. The industry is benefiting from having a high-profile Minister who is promoting New Zealand tourism around the world and a Government that has invested heavily in targeted markets. Recently as Associate Minister I met with a number of key representatives of the British travel industry in London. Many of them expressed a realsense of optimism in having New Zealand as a tourism destination and lauded Tourism New Zealand’s outstanding overseas promotional work.Hon Trevor Mallard: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. [Interruption]Mr SPEAKER: Order! A point of order has been called so the normal rules apply.Hon Trevor Mallard: Thank you Mr Speaker. I would just like you to point out to the Minister that he was answering on behalf of the Minister of Tourism and the activities of the Associate Minister should not be taken into account in that answer unless he says “on behalf of the Minister the Associate Minister did something”. He has got the wrong person.Mr SPEAKER: I appreciate the point that the member is making. Ministers should recall that when they are answering on behalf of a Minister they need to initiate their answer with that comment. But I am sure on my interpretation of that answer he was actually interpreting the actions of the Minister rather than those of the Associate Minister.Joanne Hayes: When the Minister was atTrenz last year he committed an additional $158 million towards tourism over the next 4 years. What progress is he seeing?Hon TODD McCLAY: We are seeing great progress. There were 2.78 million visitor arrivals in New Zealand in the year to April 2014 which is 6 percent higher than in 2013. This includes growth from Australia of 5.5 percent; from Asia which is up by 8.3 percent; from Europe which is up by 6.8 percent; and from the Americas which is up by 8.8 percent. This Government’s support for a far more proactive and coordinated tourism strategy is really starting to pay dividends. In the most recent international visitor survey the total visitor spend in New Zealand was up by 9 percent to almost $7 billion. A recent New Zealand Institute of Economic Research report showed that within five of our major tourism markets the promotion of New Zealand was found to have had considerable impact on the choice of people—more good news for the New Zealand tourism sector.Darien Fenton: Has he not broken his promise that he made to grieving families to clean up safety in the adventure tourism industry when progress on the safety audits has stalled because of his Government’s failure to properly resource safety audit providers?Hon TODD McCLAY: No that is not correct. The Prime Minister and Ministers have worked very hard in this area. Indeed the Government is committed to assisting the adventure activities sector to meet its obligation and deadline of 1 November to register under the Health and Safety in Employment Regulations. Approximately 460 adventure tourism activity operators are subject to these regulations andWorkSafe New Zealand which administers the regulations has developed solutions to help these operators meet this deadline of 1 November.