Comments on: Adventure Tourism Safety in New Zealand – A Leap of Faith? http://www.tourismindustryblog.co.nz/2010/05/new-zealand-adventure-tourism-safety-a-leap-of-faith/ Business Articles for the New Zealand Tourism Industry Wed, 25 Jan 2012 09:44:20 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Jane Hindle http://www.tourismindustryblog.co.nz/2010/05/new-zealand-adventure-tourism-safety-a-leap-of-faith/comment-page-1/#comment-693 Jane Hindle Mon, 10 May 2010 01:26:14 +0000 http://www.tourismindustryblog.co.nz/?p=4455#comment-693 One of the challenges is to get our various industry bodies to work together to share their minimum requirements, benchmarking and even audits. As a small organisation, the audit process is a non-trivial task as we take it seriously and view it as an opportunity to learn and improve best practise. It takes at least half a day to go through and that excludes the preparation time. What does frustrate me is having to answer the same information multiple times for multipe audits. We have our regular annual Audit (for financial and business processes); we have our Maritime Safety Authority audits - often spot checks (safety, crew training and safey procedures); we have our CYFS audit (financial and business processes and of course safety procedures) and we've just done our Qualmark audit (financial and business processes, safety, crew training and customer experience). I feel we are audited enough and but I have fears of a knee jerk reaction to both this and the report into the OPC tradgey which will set up yet another industry body to audit us. It would be good if one of these existing organisations, and Qualmark would be a logical one I suspect, to add in a specific category for adventure and outdoor pursuits. And for them to perhaps reduce other areas of their audit when there is evidence that it has already been substantiated. One of the challenges is to get our various industry bodies to work together to share their minimum requirements, benchmarking and even audits. As a small organisation, the audit process is a non-trivial task as we take it seriously and view it as an opportunity to learn and improve best practise. It takes at least half a day to go through and that excludes the preparation time. What does frustrate me is having to answer the same information multiple times for multipe audits. We have our regular annual Audit (for financial and business processes); we have our Maritime Safety Authority audits – often spot checks (safety, crew training and safey procedures); we have our CYFS audit (financial and business processes and of course safety procedures) and we’ve just done our Qualmark audit (financial and business processes, safety, crew training and customer experience). I feel we are audited enough and but I have fears of a knee jerk reaction to both this and the report into the OPC tradgey which will set up yet another industry body to audit us. It would be good if one of these existing organisations, and Qualmark would be a logical one I suspect, to add in a specific category for adventure and outdoor pursuits. And for them to perhaps reduce other areas of their audit when there is evidence that it has already been substantiated.

]]> By: John Jepson http://www.tourismindustryblog.co.nz/2010/05/new-zealand-adventure-tourism-safety-a-leap-of-faith/comment-page-1/#comment-692 John Jepson Sun, 09 May 2010 23:32:30 +0000 http://www.tourismindustryblog.co.nz/?p=4455#comment-692 I believe it would be wise to introduce a minimum level of qualification needed for someone to secure a job in the Adventure Tourism industry. I studied Adventure Tourism at NMIT in Nelson where I learned extensively about risk assessment and general health and safety, as well as health and safety specific to a number of different adventure pursuits. I fear that the 'on the job' training offered by a lot of adventure tourism operations may not be hitting the mark. A solid grounding in risk assessment backed up with practical experience should be a pre requisite for any 'hands on' job in the adventure tourism industry. I believe it would be wise to introduce a minimum level of qualification needed for someone to secure a job in the Adventure Tourism industry.

I studied Adventure Tourism at NMIT in Nelson where I learned extensively about risk assessment and general health and safety, as well as health and safety specific to a number of different adventure pursuits. I fear that the ‘on the job’ training offered by a lot of adventure tourism operations may not be hitting the mark.

A solid grounding in risk assessment backed up with practical experience should be a pre requisite for any ‘hands on’ job in the adventure tourism industry.

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