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People flying from New Zealand should be required to pay a new departure tax to help fund climate-change efforts, the Environment Commissioner says.
In a just-released report, Simon Upton has recommended three other bold steps to ease tourism's pressure on the environment, including tightening rules around freedom camping.
Tourism Minister Stuart Nash says it's too early to respond in detail to the suggested measures.
But he added the $41b-a-year industry - the country's largest export sector until 2020 - would not be returning to a pre-pandemic "business as usual" state.
A major industry group has also welcomed many of the ideas - but questioned whether it was the right time to hit travellers with another tax, given it would already be a challenge to re-establish global tourism connections.
Still, Upton has argued the pandemic's pause could be used to tackle some long-standing social and environmental issues facing the sector.
"There is broad support for the idea that protecting tourism livelihoods in the short term should not morph into a slow but inexorable return to the status quo in the long term."
He said the mooted departure tax would reflect the environmental cost of flying internationally from New Zealand.
The revenue, he proposed, could support the development of low emissions aviation technologies, and provide a source of climate finance for Pacific Island nations.
While the report didn't recommend any set fees, it did explore some hypothetical charges for travellers, depending on how far they were flying.
For people flying to the UK or the east coast of Australia, one lower-bound estimate based on a tax rate of NZ$35 per tonne of carbon dioxide suggested charges as low as $60 and $6 respectively.
Under upper-bound estimates - equivalent to the UK's Air Passenger Duty, but with distances reconfigured for New Zealand's key visitor markets - the charge for short-haul flights to Australia and the Pacific could be $25 for economy and $50 for other classes.
Trips to medium-haul destinations like South-East Asia could see economy passengers charged $90 and premium passengers $195 - while, correspondingly, long-haul trips would come with fees of $155 and $340.
His report found that, by applying a range of rates to passenger movements for New Zealand's 10 tourist markets in 2019, a departure tax could generate between $100m and $400m annually.
Upton argued that any departure tax would be a small percentage of the cost of most trips - and would apply to Kiwis so as not to discriminate against foreign tourists.
While the fees might discourage some people from coming here, he said, research supporting the report had indicated New Zealand was a "must-visit destination" for many people, with demand not being overly sensitive to an increase in airfares.
Upton argued that a climate-related tax could even enhance New Zealand's reputation if it was seen as more sustainable than competing destinations.
Elsewhere in the report, Upton proposed that any future Government funding for tourism infrastructure should be conditional on a set of environmental criteria - and also be aligned with mana whenua and what local communities wanted.
The report found that in places like Akaroa, some locals benefited from tourism - but others had little say and feel imposed on - something backed up by a national survey suggesting 42 per cent of Kiwis thought tourism put too much pressure on New Zealand.
The analysis also noted how, in 2019, the Government spent upwards of $200m supporting tourism - but less than $50m mitigating the environmental pressures that result from it.
Upton also thought it critical to clarify and strengthen the tools the Department of Conservation could use to address the loss of wilderness and natural quiet at the country's most spectacular attractions.
That included tightening up rules around commercial activity on conservation lands and waters, such as limiting noise and visual pollution from helicopter flights, or res...