For nearly a decade, Stewart Island/Rakiura has benefited from a visitor levy scheme to keep tourism infrastructure in tip-top shape.

But the Southland District Council wants to triple the charge tourists pay to fund other services which has locals and tourism operators furious.

Bill Moffatt from Stewart Islands is one of them.

"Totally disagree with it. It's just far too much."

The levy was first introduced in 2013 and charged non-residents over the age of 18, $5, to visit the island.

It has racked around $1.3m to date for visitor-related infrastructure.

But after an attempt to increase the levy in 2018, the council has come back with a report that's found the current charge is "unlikely to be sufficient to fund the future costs of visitor-related activities".

So, the council wants to increase the charge to $15.

But some of those who rely on tourism say it's excessive.

Moffatt said, "Stewart Island's an expensive destination to go to now. By putting it up by another $10 is just going to deter more people from going, so that's less visitors to the island, less revenue… to businesses on the island."

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Four hundred people live on Rakiura and roughly 100 times that number visit every year putting strain on core services, like wastewater, stormwater, and electricity.

Southland District Council spokesperson, Karen Purdue, said "If we do not get funding from places like the visitor levy, it will fall back on the large extent to our ratepayers, and we believe that's an unnecessary burden."

She said that "council's position is visitors should pay their share".

But the island's District Councillor, Jon Spraggon, disagrees.

"To us, that is double dipping because we've already paid a rate on it any work on the sewage system or toilets should come out of the rate not the levy."

Others believe it's not fair on tourists, including internationals.

Stewart Island Promotions chairperson and owner of Stewart Island Backpackers, Aaron Joy, said "They get clipped when they come into the country and next thing they come here and get clipped again so you've got to be very careful."

Visitors 1News spoke to did not mind an increase.

"For what you get and the value you're getting on the island, it's fantastic, fantastic value for money," one said.

Other said that "$15 isn't prohibitive in terms of cost".

"You'd pay that in parking fees in Auckland!"

Maintaining the balance of a dilemma to keep our third largest island humming.

Public consultation ends on April 1.