Dunedin Tourism Operators Perceptions of Environmental Certification Schemes in New Zealand

The importance of successfully adopting a sustainable approach to environmental management has been identified as critical to ensuring the future prosperity of the New Zealand Tourism Industry. With the New Zealand Tourism Strategy emphasising environmental certifications role in guiding business focus towards environmental performance, while also providing economic and socio‐cultural benefits, it is appropriate that this study should focus on an examination of tourism operators and their awareness of and involvement with these schemes. A quantitative study was undertaken using an internet based survey to sample all of the tourism operators in the target region of Dunedin. A questionnaire was administered to all tourism operators identified by a database collected primarily by the regional tourism operation (RTO) in the area, Tourism Dunedin. Forty nine usable questionnaires were collected, representing a 10 percent response rate. In October 2009, 26 percent of respondents had gained an environmental certification, with another 10 percent indicating that they intend to do so. Involvement with environmental certification requires an investment of resources including time, staff, money and knowledge which are often only available to SME’s in scarce amounts. Several potential benefits of environmental certification were identified by operators, although the majority of respondents believed that the perceived barriers were too great to peruse certification