Investing the IVL

Projects funded by the IVL aim to address current challenges in the tourism and conservation systems.

Investment Plan 2023

The IVL is expected to raise roughly $80m per annum (assuming 2019 arrival figures), split evenly between Tourism and Conservation projects (50:50). The Investment Plan for the IVL has been designed to focus spending on priorities which are likely to have the greatest impact to addressing certain issues and challenges that tourism and conservation faces.

You can read the Investment Plan 2023 here.

International Visitor Conservation and Tourism Levy — Investment Plan 2023 [PDF, 1.8 MB]

The investment priorities are split between tourism and conservation, where the following Investment Statements guide the spending of the IVL fund:

Tourism Investment Statement

The IVL will invest in tourism projects that are or have the potential to be nationally significant or provide a co-ordinated approach to addressing shared tourism system challenges. 

We will give priority to tourism projects that:

1. supports a transition to a regenerative, resilient tourism model
2. reduces tourism’s environmental impact by:
   • supporting adaptation and resilience to climate change,
   • supporting low carbon infrastructure development, and/or,
   • actively protecting and/or regenerating our natural resources
3. improve the way in which tourism serves communities, including iwi and hapū, by reducing visitor impact and contributing to the communities and local economies that the sector operates in
4. upholds Māori rights and interest for tourism, and Māori participate in investments to the level they wish. 

Priority Area 1: Nationally significant investments

Nationally significant investments are projects which contribute to significant system change within New Zealand’s tourism sector.

Funded projects should:

• help manage or protect places and deliver kaitiakitanga (for example, by reducing congestion, protecting the environment, and/or improving resilience)
• help the industry reinvest in place (for example, through revenue mechanisms, or restorative or regenerative projects)
• have transformative or network effects (for example, by addressing themes in Destination Management Plans, creating shared services, or pilots/feasibility projects that have transformative or network potential)
• help the industry to ‘tread lightly’ (particularly in terms of carbon, infrastructure and transport).

Priority Area 2: Co-ordinated approach to addressing shared tourism system challenges

A more co-ordinated approach to addressing shared tourism system challenges is defined as club or industry goods.

Funded projects should:

• provide direct benefit to a large portion of the sector (industry, local government, and/or central government)
• be more efficiently delivered collectively, or without collective effort would not be available.

Conservation Investment Statement

The IVL will invest in projects that support the two conservation pillars of: protecting and restoring indigenous biodiversity; and responding to visitor pressures on conservation and the environment.

The IVL will give priority to projects that achieve the following priorities under the two conservation pillars.

Pillar 1: Protecting and restoring indigenous biodiversity

• understanding threats to biodiversity and how to manage them
• delivering interventions to protect indigenous species
• delivering landscape scale ecosystem management 
• delivering nature-based solutions to the impacts of climate change.

Pillar 2: Responding to visitor pressures on conservation and the environment

• understanding visitor impacts and how to manage them
• enhancing cultural heritage and protecting the natural environment from visitor impacts
• delivering system level responses to visitor pressures
• transitioning to a low emissions and resilient heritage and visitor system.

Read more about IVL investments and priorities in the 2023 IVL Investment Plan.