There's a call to look at how we manage our tourism, with increasing pressure on some of the country's most popular destinations.

LISTEN ABOVE: Director of the New Zealand Tourism Research Institute at AUT Simon Milne spoke to Rachel Smalley on the Mike Hosking Breakfast

Infrastructure and resources are being stretched to the limit at certain times of the year, says Director of the New Zealand Tourism Research Institute at AUT Simon Milne.

He said the real challenge is in particular regional destinations like Wanaka, the Catlins and Waiheke Island, which are at capacity.

Mr Milne said all sorts of taxes are being discussed, and need to be looked at carefully.

"We've had discussion of visitor departure taxes, accommodation taxes, user fees for visitors going to things like our national parks. All of these different instruments are going to have to be looked at very carefully."

He said tourism needs to be grown in a sustainable fashion.

"And the way to do that is to look at increasing yield from every single visitor. If we can get more money out of every visitor, we don't need to focus quite so much on just growing the number of visitors."

He told Rachel Smalley there are many ways to increase visitor yield.

"We need to have better education for our staff. We need to have better use of things like the internet and social media and how we market the industry."