The country as a whole benefits greatly from that, but it doesn’t come without a bill.
And that bill often falls on ratepayers already saddled with increasingly unaffordable infrastructure requirements.
Take Ruapehu, for example: a geographically large district with massive infrastructure costs but only 8000 ratepayers to pay for it.
That’s a problem even before accounting for the thousands of tourists who flock to the region year-round.
Essentially, places like Ruapehu and Queenstown must support far more people than their resident population.
Under National’s plan, councils will get a share of the levy collected from visitors at the border, based on the number of overseas tourists who stay in their area.
The news has been welcomed by mayors, and why wouldn’t it be?
Rotorua Mayor Tania Tapsell said it was “such a relief” because regions needed investment and to be able to make decisions about how it is spent.
Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown, a staunch advocate of a bed-tax the Government initially considered, said it was a step in the right direction but would still leave his council millions of dollars short compared with the take from a bed tax.
Ruapehu Mayor Weston Kirton said it “doesn’t cover anywhere near the costs” associated with being a year-round tourist destination.
Their responses vary as much as the needs of their districts.
Giving councils a say in how they spend money collected by visitors is a good thing, but there may one day need to be flexibility around regions collecting money as well.
The share of the International Visitor Levy will be gratefully accepted by councils.
But it won’t solve the issue entirely, and if visitor numbers continue to grow, so will the burden placed on our infrastructure.
The conversation about how we pay for the costs of one of our biggest industries needs to continue, and no doubt it will.
Councils will make sure it does.