A road less-travelled: Exploring management perspectives on camping movement and representation in the Waitaki and Mackenzie Districts, New Zealand : A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Applied Science

Abstract

Camping is an increasingly popular way for tourists to travel within New Zealand and around the world. Allowing tourists to save money, stay close to attractions, and maximise their flexibility of travel, camping provides a convenient accommodation option for domestic and international tourists alike. Although camping has occurred throughout human history, camping in the 21st century is evolving into an increasingly mobile phenomenon. As a result of the growing popularity of mobile forms of camping in New Zealand, campgrounds and communities across the country are being placed under considerable pressure during the summer months. There is evidence that this situation is causing tensions between local residents and tourists, and creating a plethora of management issues for local authorities and tourism organisations in New Zealand. While some of these tensions have been reported by the New Zealand news media, current scholarly work on camping is dominated by research documenting the experiences of the campers themselves, and fails to examine the perspectives of local stakeholders. Camping research has also been biased towards place-based theories, and has largely overlooked the mobile nature of camping in New Zealand today. Consequently, the current study applies a mobilities perspective to camping using qualitative interviews (n=17) with local tourism organisations, councils, and other camping managers in the Mackenzie Basin and Waitaki Valley of the South Island of New Zealand. By employing Cresswell (2010)’s mobilities concepts of movement and representation, a number of political tensions and perceptions about camping in the case study area were unearthed. These included the perception of campers as a non-homogenous group, the tendency for camping managers to perceive camper movement differently based on factors such as self-containment and vehicle-type, and the imbalance in terms of the speed of information movement between various camping stakeholders. Further qualitative analysis of these factors suggests that larger-scale change to the fundamental approach to camping management—from regional to national, and from static to mobile—is needed in order for communities and campers alike to effectively and sustainably continue to enjoy camping in New Zealand. This research contributes to the mobilities literature through the unique application of Cresswell’s concepts to camping in the Mackenzie Basin and Waitaki Valley, and also to the currently limited understandings of camping in New Zealand. A wider implication of this research is that it may be applied to enable government, councils, and tourism stakeholders to form management solutions which allow tourism and mobile camping to prosper, while mitigating any negative effects on communities.