Kiwis to pass on safety tips to tourists

Foreign tourists will be bombarded with basic safety messages this summer because authorities think they don't know how to act in the outdoors.

A five-step "Outdoor Safety Code", launched by rescue agencies and the tourism industry, is meant to prevent people doing silly things such as wearing jandals on a bush walk, or taking no food on a mountain hike because they assume there is a shop on the way.

Accidents involving visitors to New Zealand have included a double-fatality in January, when two unguided Australian tourists climbed over a warning sign at Fox Glacier, walked 500 metres to the face of the glacier, and were killed by tonnes of falling ice.

Organisations are hoping the safety tips will be spread through a "tell a friend and tell a visitor" model, with tourism providers and ordinary Kiwis encouraged to share the new code.

Tongariro Expeditions' manager Jan Hayter, who transports people to and from the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, says it is mainly tourists from abroad who attempt the seven-hour hike with flimsy clothing and little food.

She has started renting jackets, walking poles, hats, sunscreen, fleecy pants, and sunglasses aboard buses heading to the crossing, and offering refunds if it is returned unused, to reduce the number of hikers heading out underdressed.

Police manager for emergency management, Inspector Gerard Prins, said in the past year, 245 (or 12 per cent) of search and rescue operations on land and sea involved foreign tourists.

"At times during the summer we're involved in eight rescues a day across New Zealand; most of those wouldn't be necessary if people followed the Outdoor Safety Code."

- © Fairfax NZ News