Blue, green, white, red and yellow; New Zealand’s roads feature signs in many different colours but why are some brown? Sarah Pollok investigates. 

This deep dive into New Zealand’s brown tourist signs began as most investigations do, with a question. 

“I wonder who decides what tourist attractions get those brown signs,” my sister said as we zoomed through Rotorua on State Highway 5 several weeks ago. Different from the bright blue and white signs, which point to tourist information spots, these brown signs are spread throughout the country. Many point visitors to cultural or geographic points of interest but also to wineries and hot spring spas, museums and hotels. 

So, how does a company get these large signs often seen on state highways around New Zealand? By meeting a very specific set of criteria. 

What are brown tourist signs? 

All one wishes to know about tourist signs can be found in a delightful little read titled “NZ Transport Agency Traffic Control Devices Manual Part 2: Direction, Service and General Guide Signs”. 

To save you the trouble, the document states that, like any traffic sign, tourist signs are used to direct people, particularly visitors unfamiliar with the area who are seeking tourist attractions. 

There are two categories of brown signs, touring routes (like the Southern Scenic Route), and tourist features. The latter includes geographical features, historical markers and scenic lookouts as well as tourist establishments and clusters of commercially operated enterprises (like wineries). 

A tourist sign for Twin Coast Discovery on the road to Tutukaka. Photo / John Stone 

“For traffic sign purposes, tourist establishments are commercially operated enterprises catering mainly for tourists. They must be of genuine interest to tourists and have some interpretive value such as guided tours or working demonstrations,” the manual states. 

Examples of such establishments include: “museums, historic homes and gardens, tourist farms, fauna parks and zoos, wineries, craft centres, potteries and art galleries, theme parks and adventure sports facilities”. 

How can a business get a brown tourist sign? 

To “justify permanent brown tourist signs” an establishment must first meet 15 specific criteria. 

It must have tourism as a core business activity, regularly provide a tourism experience beyond retail and have relevant Government and council licences to operate as a tourist facility. 

There are also a lot of specifics about hours and accessibility. It must be open to the public without prior booking during opening hours (which must cover a minimum of seven hours), be open on the weekends and at least three other weekdays as well as public and school holidays. 

For a coveted brown sign, you must also provide clean toilets and all-weather, off-street parking (with disabled options for both). You’ll also need space for coaches and other large vehicles if they’re expected. 

Information about the days and hours of opening and prices must be clearly displayed at the establishment and at nearby and regional visitor information centres. 

You’ll also need to prove you promote the location and directions to non-local visitors via digital and print media. 

Oh, and your visitor contact staff must be “appropriately trained” and provide “high standards of customer service”. There are then additional criteria depending on the type of attraction, such as zoo, art gallery, botanical garden or brewery, which are specific to that industry. 

If you pass all the checks, your approval is valid for five years and you must foot the bill for a sign to be built, installed and replaced if ever necessary. Once complete, you’re prohibited from altering the sign, which is built to painfully exact specifications. 

Tourist signs must have white borders and lettering on a specific shade of brown background in one of two sizes (depending on how fast vehicles will drive past it) and be fully reflectorised. 

A tourist sign for Ruapekapeka Historic Reserve. Photo / Michael Cunningham 

As for symbols, “a lack of nationally recognised tourist symbols” means you’ll typically only see two; a bunch of grapes to signal vineyards or wineries and a house with a mangopore symbol to mark Historic Places Trust properties. “Consideration will be given to other symbols,” the manual adds. 

There are a dizzying number of rules specifying exactly how many signs an attraction can have and where they can be. For example, an “advance sign” (which often reads like “Winery TURN RIGHT 300m”) can be used if “the tourist facility is located in an urban fringe area where 85th percentile traffic speeds exceed 75km/h”. 

New Zealand isn’t the only country with cocoa-coloured signage. Around the world, the combination of brown and white is used to signify tourist spots. 

France was allegedly the first country to introduce them in the mid-1970s and today you can find them in countries such as Italy, Germany, Great Britain, the US and Australia.