“Almost one billion extra people will be travelling in 2022, and as a result, responsible tourism is likely to become increasingly important and necessary, while authenticity and unique experiences will grow in importance for travellers. The issue of excessive tourism is likely to increase in importance for many top destinations, where many sites are overcrowded.” – Tourism Noosa Strategy, 2017 – 2022
The Noosa tourism squeeze
With just over 55,000 permanent residents, this place we call home attracts about 2.5 million visitors each year. Let those numbers sink in. Around 50 visitors for each person who lives here.
While Noosa has long been a popular destination for day trippers from Brisbane and longer stayers from Melbourne and Sydney, Tourism Noosa has set its sights on encouraging what it terms ‘high yielding’ international or national visitors.
And this begs the question: How many visitors can we squeeze into paradise before the term “sustainable tourism” no longer makes sense? It poses the challenge of what we must do to ensure our infrastructure, services – and of course the natural environment – can cope with a much greater influx.
“Being loved to death,” is an expression we hear a lot of in Noosa these days.
Where our visitors come from
In 2016, Tourism Noosa reported a 77% rise in spending from the Melbourne and Sydney markets. The wholly Noosa Council-funded tourism marketing body clearly felt this represented a good return on the $1.77 million it spent on advertising and events to capture the high-yield sector.
The cashed-up southerners provide half of Noosa’s tourism revenue even though they account for just 15% of visitors. Tourism Noosa refers to them as the “value-over-volume” market.
Traffic, water and waste
By 2022, Tourism Noosa expects an extra 1,600 visitors a day. The line up of vehicles seeking to access Hastings Street and Main Beach could run all the way to Brisbane by then! But congestion is just one of the problems to be solved.
There’s also water. And waste. And the economic vulnerability of the one sector economy – too many eggs in the one tourism basket. We all love boom periods, and we’re in one now, but we also know they never last.
After the global financial crisis of 2007, when the shit hit the fan, Noosa suffered a substantial slump in tourism and in property prices. We have a resilient community but the lack of economic diversity caused some hurt. We must never lose sight of this.
A ‘sustainable Noosa’ stakeholder reference group put together by Noosa Council has begun to meet to discuss how best to balance competing needs and prepare for a more pressurised future. There’s a lively comment thread running on Noosa Councillor Ingrid Jackson’s Facebook page – and it’s obviously a hot topic!
As this column wends it way forward, it will investigate the different aspects of sustainable tourism in Noosa and examine the best ways of achieving those delicate balances between locals and visitors, economy and environment and sharing what we have without denying the great satisfactions it offers.
One thing seems certain, that Noosa Council’s small rates base and slowly growing population is not going to be able to provide the funds to meet the infrastructure needs of both residents and the massively growing number of tourists into the future. It seems unreasonable to expect residents to do without and/or pay extra to support the infratsructure needs of the tourism imdustry. So how do we get the user to pay? The current tourism levy paid by tourist businesses is wholly returned to the industry to promote more tourism. It cannot be used to maintain, improve or add infrastructure.
Who should pay for water, roads, parking, boardwalks, parks, barbeques, toilets, etc used primarily by visitors? Who should pay for disposing of their waste? Should it be the residents through their rates? Should it be through an impost on tourism businesses other than the current tourism levy, or should we directly seeking visitors to fund the local cost of visiting Noosa with usage fees? Or should it be a mixture of these?
You are raising some crucial points, Judy. On a related facebook thread Trish suggested Tourism Noosa should change gear from ‘growth’ (marketing) to ‘maintaining’. There are many issues with trickle-down economic benefits vs the real cost of tourism. I’m looking forward to more input and Desiré’s next instalment on the topic 🙂
I have to say that given the current pressure on infrastructure, I’m very concerned about the extra 1,600 daily visitors Tourism Noosa (TN) predicts will be here in 2022. Given that it is ratepayers footing the bill for infrastructure like the recently approved $6.5 million boardwalk rebuild project, I agree with Judy, that we don’t have a large enough rate base to cover this level of expenditure. We already present the place in great condition at holiday times and we put on free (to the user, not the ratepayer buses, but really it’s time for the industry to stump up its fair share of these extra costs.
One solution is to put the tourism levy towards infrastructure instead of TN’s marketing and operational costs. That would provide around $2.5 million per annum extra to meet infrastructure expenses. Given that we are approaching peak visitation, TN should be trim its marketing sails to suit the new situation. I don’t buy this rationale that they just want to target affluent visitors and that somehow these people cause less disruption to the life of residents. And,since the drive-in visitors, along with increased day tripper numbers, will boom in coming years as SE the Queensland population reaches saturation point, we need a sustainable tourism strategy asap. I’s also time we recognised that most people visit Noosa without any marketing and they will continue to do so. Putting ratepayer bucks into attracting high-spend visitors is not fair, and this operation should be funded by those businesses catering to, and financially benefiting from, these people.
Rod Ritchie was a travel guidebook writer and a book and internet publisher for 30 years, working in Sydney and Singapore, before establishing his own IT business. Currently he runs a smaller operation and is involved in volunteer projects in the community, including being the president of Cooroy Area Residents Association.
Fully agree with you both, Rod and Judy. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment. I will try to address the important questions you raised in future articles.
It’s interesting to track what’s happening in Byron, a place that has similar issues. 33% rate rise for Noosa? https://www.northernstar.com.au/news/are-your-rates-about-to-rise-in-the-new-financial-/3175728/
The idea that businesses, and that would have to include short term hoilfay lets, should have the biggest rate increase to cover tourism infrastucture might be worth looking at for Noosa.