Beans of Black gold

Do  they think no-one notices? And who gave them the idea in the first place?

The practice of some café’s charging extra for a takeaway coffee is such a barefaced ripoff it instantly demolishes any hard earned good will quicker than…  instant coffee.

Most café owners  will tell you that the cost of seating a customer, serving their table, cleaning up after them and washing crockery is a much pricier alternative than simply handing them a paper cup.

But for some establishments in Wanaka, Dunedin and the more recent and remote caffeine outposts in Roxburgh and Invercargill, the takeout paper cup is a premium product ‘attracting’ – to use the ubiquitous term favoured by finance and telecommunication companies  – an additional surcharge to  ratchet the price up even further.

Bring the subject up with business owners and you get a rather chilly response – especially with other customers present.

One hippy outfit even referred to the ‘cost to the environment’ which presented the unlikely scenario of staff earnestly adding up the planet tax at the end of the day to send off to their cause du jour.

 Has the ‘upsell’ concept been imbedded by the espresso machines supplier as a nice little earner when they sign up a new business onto the caffeine gravy train?

Contrast this with busy inner city café’s in places like Sydney where a takeaway is often 50 cents less than a seated serving.

Fair business practice vs short term gain? Real service vs ripoff.

The bolshie response by the Hawea Community Association blocking off a popular lakeside parking spot highlights a serious problem  that we need to get a handle on.

These guys literally crapped within view of a perfectly good licensed campground with real toilet facilities where they could stay for $30 a night.

Are these the same people who badger our info centre staff for free activities, arrogantly ignore warnings about the weather and being ill equipped, ignore requests to fill out intentions books so they can avoid paying hut fees and then suck up our Search and Rescue budgets with their stupid behaviour?

It’s an easy fix  to put people in boxes but there are a number of visitors who need to be put in one – preferably a full portaloo which then gets turned upside down.

Cheap tourists with a welfare mentality to our taxpayer funded resources should stay in cheap countries because we -  and the environment – simply can’t afford them.

We’re very lucky  New Zealand is still a relatively easy and safe place to travel around.

The majority of our outdoorsy types, students and lifestylers could collectively write volumes on how to enjoy adventure in the great outdoors on a miserly budget.

And generally, as taxpayers, we’re happy to support national parks, the huge network of huts, camping areas and managed waterways that we can use for no extra cost.

As an investment we get it back in spades: generations of kiwis are brought up with a healthy regard for natural adventure and we produce outstanding outdoors people – guides, climbers, rafters and kayakers, outdoor instructors and the like who contribute to our thriving adventure tourism economy as well as our identity as kiwis.

But the floodgates for backpackers travelling on the cheap have been open for too long and now they’re being commercially targeted by the campervan companies who benefit from our relatively uncrowded landscapes.

So why not raise the entry fee?

Travellers to Bhutan are committed to US$250 in daily spending – what’s a day in godzone worth?