The Mackenzie District mayor says a $2.5 million investment to improve public toilets is a "good start going forward".

"We've been banging on their door for for quite some time," Scott Aronsen says.

The money will come from the International Visitor Levy (IVL) and be used to introduce user-pays systems at some public toilet facilities in the district.

Some of the toilets could be "easily converted" he said, while others would be upgraded.

Aronsen said the investment was an important step towards creating a fairer and more sustainable way of funding public facilities.

He said the money would help "offset" some of the cleaning cost, which is about $800,000 a year.

"We need to try and regather some of that cost back because at the moment that's falling squarely on the ratepayer of the Mackenzie district."

The public toilet network in the district is used an estimated one million times each year, with the overwhelming majority of those users being visitors.

"They're heavily utilised, and it's a significant cost," Aronsen said.

He acknowledged not everyone would agree with it, and realised as a district "we're sort of sticking our neck out on the line a little bit," but it was a means of being able to gather some revenue outside the normal rates base to fund the facilities they "obviously" had to have.

The council will now begin planning for the programme including consultation.

The funding is part of a $3.8 million investment to improve public toilets in two of New Zealand's "busiest visitor destinations", according to Tourism and Hospitality Minister Louise Upston.

It would support upgrades and new facilities in the Mackenzie and Queenstown Lakes districts.

"Both districts welcome large numbers of visitors each year, placing significant pressure on infrastructure normally funded by ratepayers," Upston said.

She said investing the IVL back into busy visitor destinations, the government was ensuring tourism continued to deliver for communities and ratepayers.