You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “When the media advocate racism to hide the real culprits behind bad driving”.
You are currently browsing comments. If you would like to return to the full story, you can read the full entry here: “When the media advocate racism to hide the real culprits behind bad driving”.
I fully agree with your stance on sloppy journalism in this regard, but I’d like to introduce another reason why Chinese tourists are a particular concern for safety on our New Zealand roads.
China is the shortest staying tourist market with a 3 day trip being the most common (http://www.chinatoolkit.co.nz/infographic). 90% of tourists have also visited another country on this trip – typically Australia, and also with a short stay (5 days is the most common). There is also an increasing trend for independent travel, with 20% of tourists preferring independent travel, and many preferring self-drive options.
Chinese tourists frequently arrive in to Auckland, fly to Rotorua, then down to Christchurch, with a drive down to Queenstown…all in 3 days. Sometimes, this is done in the reverse order, with tourists arriving directly in to Queenstown from Australia, picking up a rental car and driving to Christchurch, flying out to Rotorua or Auckland and off home again. This means tourists are arriving in New Zealand after already packing in 5 full on days exploring Australia, and honing through New Zealand in 3 days.
Chinese tourists take short holidays because of a lower annual leave allowance. This is why February is the most popular time to visit, largely thanks to when Chinese/Lunar New Year falls. So Chinese tourists are already exhausted from the long hours they work, finally get to take a holiday, and then exhaust themselves even further by trying to cover so much ground in such a short amount of time. Exhaustion, coupled with New Zealand’s dangerous driving conditions, an unfamiliar rental car, and driving on the opposite side of the road…no wonder it’s a disaster waiting to happen!
Nearly 50% of Chinese tourists seek safety as an important factor when choosing their holiday destination, (http://press.hotels.com/content/themes/CITM/assets/pdf/CITM_UK_PDF_2014.pdf). It doesn’t feel as though we are giving our visitors the best experience. Making drivers do a test before they can drive in NZ isn’t going to solve any of these factors. Instead of blaming Chinese tourists, who will continue with this behaviour because international travel is seen to increase status, particularly with the growing middle class, we need to better understand our visitor’s wants, needs and behaviours, and design a better experience for them. How can we maximise the feeling of the self-drive tour giving Chinese tourists a sense of independence, but minimise the risks to themselves and others by taking to New Zealand roads while exhausted? There is a better way. Those in the industry who find ways of catering to this niche need will find competitive advantage in the market, and also make the world a safer place…for both our valued guests and us.
Thank you, Rebecca: one of the most considered and intelligent comments I have read on this entire issue.
How long before an acclimatised Asian New Zealander gets this treatment? It’s one thing, a dumb, racist thing, to pick on tourists. It’s another thing entirely to start treating local people like this.
Bill, I reckon that’s been going on for all the time I’ve been in this country. In 27 years behind the wheel, I’ve had people swear at me, call me ‘a f***ing Chink,’ and attempt to swerve into me to force me off the road for incidents that are entirely tolerable, and usually where they are equally culpable. (Auckland is worse for this.) Dad has had someone follow him all the way home to give him an earful, over turning out from Johnstone Street into Jervois Quay into the centre instead of the right lane (this is before turns had broken lines marking them, in the 1980s, and it wasn’t actually an illegal manœuvre, anyway). This is the sort of stuff you see all the time and usually put down to errare est humanum, but I reckon we bear more of the brunt of it thanks to a stereotype that makes people notice the infractions when we commit them. (I came out of the same intersection in 2013 and a white driver ran the red light and almost T-boned me. I didn’t get out of the car to give her an earful, because, as you know, as a New Zealander you just don’t have that short a fuse.)
I keep hearing stories about “Asian drivers” and it is racist, because those who tell these stories forget similar incidents when it comes to a white or a brown driver.