Department of Conservation releases Great Walks booking dates after major tech glitches

10:46 am on 14 June 2023

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Bookings for the Kepler Track will open on 20 July at 9.30am. Photo: 123rf.com

Most Great Walks will open for bookings in July following months of technical glitches and false starts.

In April, the booking system crashed for several hours when 10,000 people tried to book the Milford Track.

Despite the glitch, the iconic Great Walk was effectively sold out by noon that day.

A week later, the Department of Conservation postponed bookings for most Great Walks with plans to reopen them in June.

That was pushed back again last month so DOC could get more testing results back.

DOC heritage and visitors director Cat Wilson said the results had been received and it was good news.

"We are now pleased to announce that the rest of the Great Walks bookings will open from 11 July," Wilson said.

"The fixes made to the booking system have been tested extensively by our vendor and an independent specialist, so we have the assurance we need to re-open bookings soon.

"We are grateful to everyone for their patience and understanding and appreciate the time it has taken to make the required changes to the system mean we are opening bookings later than usual."

The department has faced criticism in recent months particularly from operators who have lost bookings due to the delays and the continued uncertainty.

The Tongariro Northern Circuit will open first, with the rest of the tracks opening later in the month.

'It has been quite a big unknown for us' - tour company director

Tourism companies said they were relieved to have the new Great Walk booking dates after multiple delays.

Southern Wilderness New Zealand managing director Angus McKenzie was pleased to have more certainty.

"It means that we can keep gathering names and bookings for our upcoming season so it is really nice for us to know when it's going to happen," he said.

"It would have been a lot nicer to have it open sooner but it is nice to know."

The delay had given his company more time to gather bookings for the upcoming season, which were looking good.

But now they were waiting to see if they could book the necessary hut spots to make that happen, he said.

Commercial operators compete for spaces like everyone else when the Great Walk bookings open.

"It has been quite a big unknown for us, just not knowing when we're going to be able to secure our dates, if we're going to be able to secure our bookings for our people.

"We do pre-book a lot of our clients in so we can have the names ready for when the booking system opens, so they are all waiting to know if they get their hut bookings as well so that their holidays can go ahead."

That included booking flights as McKenzie recommended to clients that they not book them until the dates had been secured.

Walking Legends operates on the Tongariro Northern Circuit, which opens first.

Co-owner and operator Cathy Taylor said the delays and date changes were manageable.

"We've been able to capture demand for this walk from our walkers over the last four weeks since we last expected it to open," Taylor said.

"It was really good to be able to email everybody today and just let them know that there's a new opening date coming up and to just reconfirm their interest so I'm confident we'll be able to make that work."

She was pleased the Tongariro Northern Circuit had its own dedicated booking date.

"In the past, the Department of Conservation would often put two Great Walks opening on the same day, one South Island walk and one North Island walk, and that often had the effect of disadvantaging us by crashing the system because of the overwhelming demand for that South Island walk."