Tramping, which in the MSC context includes short walks, day hikes and multi-day trips, is the most popular activity within our mandate.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 25%of the New Zealand adult population went tramping at least once annually. The pandemic had a significant impact on tramping participation, generating a significant spike in activity, reaching a peak of approximately 29% of New Zealand adults. However, by 2023, this had returned to ‘normal’ pre-pandemic levels.
Unsurprisingly, the pandemic also impacted international visitor tramping participation. Through the 2018-2019 year, approximately 683,000 visitors went tramping in Aotearoa New Zealand. During the pandemic there were several years of essentially zero activity due to border restrictions and very limited international travel. By 2023-2024, numbers began to increase, with approximately 398,000 tramping visitors, and this is continuing to climb. The majority of international tramping visitors undertake short walks or day hikes rather than overnight or multi-day tramps.
Tramping Fatalities
The graph highlights how tramping fatalities can fluctuate year by year, while overall trends are decreasing. The 5-year average is now 3.4 fatalities per year, and the 10-year average is now 4.6 per year.
Over the last 10 years, since 2015-16, there have been 46 tramping fatalities. Exactly half of these were international visitors. However, since 2022-2023, when our borders largely reopened and international visitors had begun to return, eight of the 12 (66.7%) fatalities were international visitors.
Tramping Search and Rescue
As a general trend, the number of trampers involved in search and rescues has continued to increase slightly over the last 10 years. However, as the graph shows, there are years with reasonable fluctuations. The 5-year average is now 558 people per year, and the 10-year average is now 540.
Over the last 10 years, the percentage of the NZ adult population participating in tramping has fluctuated, but by and large is approximately 25% of the adult population. Taking into account an overall increase in the population, there are more NZ adults tramping than ever before.
Using participation rates and actual SAR counts, we can see that the rate of trampers requiring search and rescue per 10,000 participants has trended slightly down over the last 8 years, although it has been climbing steadily since the COVID-19 pandemic.
From 2020-2021 onwards, we have included NZ ambulance data from Hato Hone St John, adding a type of ‘rescue’ event not included in previous data. This will have a slight impact on the data and trend.
Note: The data collection system changed in 2018-19 and this may have resulted in some underreporting for this specific year.
Tramping Severe Injuries
Focusing on severe tramping injuries, two of the key metrics we track both indicate an increasing trend. Severe injuries as a percentage of all injuries shows a steady increase over time, and the story is similar for severe injuries per 10,000 participants.
This increase mirrors the overall increase in all tramping injuries of any severity. Again, we believe this trend highlights the need for increased targeted injury prevention investment for tramping, enabling dedicated prevention work to focus specifically on reducing serious injuries. Over the last decade there has been very little tramping targeted injury prevention investment, and we believe these trends will continue unless further resources are available to address this.