With the recent guidelines outlined by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and in guidance with WorkSafe surrounding the Adventure Activities Regulation, some of the tourism sector has voiced concerns over the lack of clarity surrounding its data collection.
Haka Tourism Group general manager Eve Lawrence says of one of these concerns highlighted is the ambiguity around the requirements set by WorkSafe.
“From a health and safety perspective, we (as tourism operators) already go way further above and beyond what WorkSafe recommends. The main concern is the lack of clarity from WorkSafe around data collection.”
She says because of the lack of clarity, there could be unrealistic expectations set for every ITO and operator to collect extensive data from third-party partners, which would require additional manpower and resources.
While she recognises that larger businesses like Haka Tours might have the capacity to manage these requirements, smaller businesses with fewer staff members would find it challenging. “It’s almost like branching into Step 3 on sustainability where you have to do a full supply chain audit,” she says.
WorkSafe has not provided clarity around this concern, the tourism sector continues to seek more transparent and consistent guidelines to ensure the safety and compliance of all operators, big or small.
In response to data requirement, WorkSafe has clarified the data requirements for tourism operators and businesses as ‘A notifiable event, which arises from work, includes a death, a notifiable illness or injury, or a notifiable incident. Only serious events are intended to be notified. The amendments to the Adventure Activities Regulations introduce sector-specific notifiable events, requiring registered adventure activity operators to notify WorkSafe when certain events occur.’
Regarding the transfer of this data, WorkSafe mentioned that the arrangements remain unchanged. In the event of a death resulting from work, operators must notify WorkSafe immediately by phone. For other notifiable incidents or injuries, operators must use WorkSafe’s online notifications system.
And of standardisation, WorkSafe says that information for adventure activities operators was updated immediately after the Amendment Regulations were issued.
The updates will be made again before the amendments commence on April 1, 2024.
They also confirmed that all registered adventure activity operators and key industry stakeholders were directly notified of these changes in August 2023.
