More than 100,000 'freedom campers' in NZ last year

Friday, 13 April 2018

What's the difference between 'freedom camping' and good old fashioned camping?

Freedom campers make up just 3 per cent of visitors to New Zealand but their numbers have risen to about 110,000 over the past year - depending on how you measure them.

Australian visitors made up the largest number visitors who did 'some' freedom camping at 25 per cent (28,000), with German visitors next most likely to freedom camp (16,000), followed by UK visitors .

They tended to visit more regions, stay longer, and therefore spent more, even if they spent less each day, according to a report by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment.

But Iain Shaw, from research firm Angus & Associates, said more work needed to be done on agreeing a definition of who was a 'freedom camper' as opposed to 'freedom camping', to understand whether this type of tourism was beneficial.

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He said data published by MBIE measured everyone who spent one night 'freedom camping' during their visit.

It could be anything from a night under the stars in the bush to a night next to the highway to rest up because they were tired from driving, he said.

This was quite different from freedom campers who did not spend money on commercial accommodation for the majority of their time.

'I think it would be valuable to broaden the scope of these projects so that we can have a better understanding of the real costs and benefits of freedom campers.

'My personal opinion is that it is freedom campers rather than freedom camping that concerns New Zealanders, and if that is the case, then we need to develop a better understanding of how these visitors affect communities, because it's one of the biggest threats to tourism's social license,' Shaw said.

Local Government NZ will hold a freedom camping symposium in Nelson next week.

The theme is 'Freedom Camping – a focus on responsible camping: meeting the balance between the desire to be an attractive destination and a need to protect the environment and our communities'.

Government ministers and several mayors and chief executives will attend.

Meanwhile, MBIE's latest report found freedom campers tended to stay roughly 51 days and spent about $4700 per visitor, with a daily spend of $90 (compared with $190 daily for all visitors).

The overall estimated expenditure of visitors who did some freedom camping was $530m last year.

Freedom campers visited more than eight regions compared with three regions for all visitors.

The International Visitor Survey report measured of the number of visitors who did some freedom camping - 'staying at a place that is not an official camp site, in a tent, caravan, campervan or motorhome'.