3 Methodology

3.1 Structure and governance of project

The Department formed governance, working and reference groups for the review.

The governance (or steering) group was established to assist the Group Manager in his role as sponsor and comprises representatives from the Department of Labour, Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Tourism, Civil Aviation Authority, Tourism Industry Association New Zealand, Maritime New Zealand, Accident Compensation Corporation and Queenstown Lakes District Council (on behalf of Local Government New Zealand).

The working group was established to support the governance group and comprises members of those same departments, plus Outdoors New Zealand and Department of Conservation.

The external reference group was established so the review team could draw on the knowledge of people and organisations with relevant expertise and/or representing particular parts of the adventure and outdoor commercial sectors to provide advice to the working group on any issues affecting safety and risk management, and possible solutions. The group has 60 members and is consulted by email and through telephone conversations where expertise from particular members is sought.

3.2 Stakeholders in the review

The following people and organisational types were identified as being stakeholders in the review:

• People personally affected by incidents of serious harm or fatalities that have occurred in adventure and outdoor commercial sector activities
  • People who were injured
  • Families and friends of people who were injured or killed
  • People who witnessed a death or injury
• Owners and staff of adventure and outdoor commercial sector businesses
• Tour providers, both in New Zealand and overseas (but not operating adventure or outdoor commercial sector activities themselves)
• Organisations representing a number of adventure and outdoor commercial sector businesses
• Academic researchers studying relevant aspects of the sector
• The Tourism Industry Association of New Zealand (TIANZ) and Tourism New Zealand
• Industry training organisations and standard setting and educational bodies
• Licensing or registration bodies
• Auditing, monitoring and quality assurance bodies
• Relevant central or local government agencies
• Other relevant experts.

People who lost family members through fatalities in the sector during the last five years were invited to provide comments to the Department of Labour by 28 February 2010. These comments will be analysed separately.

3.3 Consultation process

The Department of Labour disseminated two types of questionnaire:

• One for adventure and outdoor commercial sector operators, associations and organisations.
• One for individuals such as academics and staff of adventure and outdoor commercial sector businesses.

The questionnaire was distributed to external reference group members and other stakeholders. Responses from reference group members were identified from the reference group member list, so that it was possible to identify reference group members' responses separately.

Respondents were asked to tick one or more pre-determined boxes to describe their interest in the review and to answer set questions as listed under 'Key Questions' (Appendix 1).

Interested parties were invited to respond to the questionnaire either electronically or in hard copy format. These were available on the Department's website. Responses closed on 16 December 2009. In addition, a few organisations provided supplementary information specific to their activity.

A total of 142 responses were received, from a wide variety of individuals, commercial sector operators, associations and organisations.

3.4 Method of analysis

Responses to all questions were analysed to identify main themes. These have been identified in this report. The remaining data will also be scrutinised and discussed with the working group for the review.

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