Hospitality Sector Review
Fixing red tape to help hospitality grow
The Hospitality Review covers regulation that applies to the hospitality sector; restaurants, bars, cafes, food stalls, food trucks, catering businesses, and hotels.
The New Zealand’s hospitality sector is a $15.7 billion industry that employs over 145,000 people.
The sector has told Government that it is hurting. They say that outdated, overlapping and confusing rules are holding back growth, on the back of substantial challenges over the past five years, starting with Covid.
The Hospitality Review
The Ministry for Regulation’s Hospitality Review will find the problems with hospitality regulation, and make recommendations to cut red tape, keep costs down, manage risks, and make compliance easier.
We will assess whether the rules are:
- necessary and worth the cost
- effective, efficient, and proportionate to the risks
- adaptable and can evolve over time
- easy to comply with, and
- aligned with good regulatory practice.
Scope
This review looks at regulations that apply to restaurants, bars, cafes, food stalls at markets, food trucks, catering businesses, and hotels. Gambling regulation is out of scope.
See the full Terms of Reference. (257 KB, Pdf)
Engagement and consultation
Since the Review began, we have engaged with the hospitality sector, including business owners, workers, peak bodies, hospitality regulators, and other interested parties about the regulatory issues they experience. We are currently considering the feedback we have received and developing regulatory options to address those issues.
Timeframes
We will deliver a final report to Ministers for their consideration by July 2026.