Tourism and biosecurity: a content analysis of Aotearoa New Zealand news media reporting 2009-2019

There is growing interest in the use and utility of news media content analysis in tourism research. We report a content analysis of 153 news media articles on a topic of growing interest among tourism researchers globally: tourism and biosecurity. Our work is based on media reports from Aotearoa New Zealand news sources over the period 2009-2019, identifying five key themes. Together they illustrate how tourism, nature conservation, agriculture, horticulture and forestry are utterly and irretrievably interconnected in global flows of people and organisms. They also highlight the important role played by the many actors at policy and operational levels in tourism and border control that have a role to play in minimising potential impacts of biosecurity breaches. We conclude by discussing the value of media content analyses in tourism research stressing that the method, on its own, will reveal only part of the story, and should always be followed up with more intense and critical interrogation of the issues under study.