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Queentown: New Zealand's adrenalin capital

The safety standards of New Zealand’s adventure tourism industry is to be reviewed, following a series of tragic accidents.

Kiwi prime minister John Key has threatened that any unsafe “cowboys” in the $20 billion industry will be shut down.

The PM ordered the urgent review after receiving a letter from the father of 21-year-old Emily Jordan, a British backpacker who died while river-boarding, in April last year.

Worcestershire law student Emily has been bodyboarding down the Kawarau River, in the South Island’s south-west, when she became trapped between rocks and drowned.

Last month, Queenstown company Mad Dog River Boarding was fined $66,000 and ordered to pay $80,000 reparation to Emily’s family.

However that tragic event was not an isolated event in the industry.

Six students and their teacher died on a canyoning trip in the same month, while in March this year a woman died when she fell from a rope swing.

Mr Key, who is also tourism minister, said Ms Jordan’s father had highlighted a number of safety concerns.

“I need to make sure we are doing everything we can to preserve the reputation of the industry,” he said. “Tourism is critically important to New Zealand and we must do all we can to ensure visitor safety.”

Key said there would always be an element of risk for those who took part.

“But it’s also important that they are afforded the protection and care that we would expect to take place,” he said. “And in the case of one or two of these incidents, I’m just not absolutely satisfied that has been the case.”