Tourism Noosa describes itself as “a not-for-profit destination marketing and management company [and] one of the strongest tourism membership organisations in Queensland”, its more than 600 members are drawn from Noosa’s accommodation providers, tour operators, restaurateurs, retailers, real estate agents and the wellbeing folk.
In June this year, under the headline, ‘Is Noosa Council usurping Tourism Noosa’s role’, I pointed out that ‘usurping’ was exactly what the Council had in mind when it announced that tourism was now considered ‘core Council business’, that it would bring all Tourism Noosa’s money in-house to allocate at will, and that ‘destination management’ now belonged to the Council not to the tourism body.
In the sense most people understand it, destination management is a professional service where a company with local knowledge, expertise and resources works with clients to implement tours, accommodation, leisure pursuits and logistics for group conferences and other events. Tony and Dani Mulherin’s Noosa Destination Management Company, NDMC, is a fine local example.
But, contrary to that understanding, this is not the concept Noosa Council has extracted from Tourism Noosa. It’s gone well beyond that to appropriate a mechanism to control all economic, social and environmental aspects of tourism in the Shire.
This is the other, the ‘political’, destination management. Simply put, it’s a control process meant to be undertaken by a local government in collaboration with tourism stakeholders and following principles of good governance. Hmm.
So having cleared that up without casting judgement, apart from the ‘hmm’, a brief explainer. It was in 2000 that Tourism Noosa agreed that Noosa Council should collect a tourism levy from eligible businesses. The Council would process the payments and return the proceeds, less an administration fee, to Tourism Noosa to pursue its destination marketing and management.
There was an understanding that the annual levy did not ‘belong’ to Noosa Council and for two decades the Council dutifully collected it (‘it’ most recently being about $3 million), took a fee and, more recently, funds for its economic unit, returning about $2.5 million to Tourism Noosa. Then in June this year, for reasons which this essay explores, the tourism body was railroaded into radical change.
It seems this change was executed not by Mayor Clare Stewart but by Noosa Council CEO, Brett de Chastel, appointed by the Playford Council in 2014 when the Shire was de-amalgamated from Sunshine Coast. Locally referred to as ‘the eighth Councillor’ because of what was perceived as his interventionist style, de Chastel recently left the Council after not renewing his contract.
One of de Chastel’s last major acts, apart from firing his assumptive second in charge, finance and corporate services director Michael Shave, was to steer the tourism levy from the clutches of Tourism Noosa and absorb it into general Council rates.
The Council’s explanation for this astonishing exploit was that “tourism promotion and economic development activities have evolved into core Council business. As such it is now considered that tourism and economic development activities should be funded by general rates rather than through the continuation of a special levy.”
As an explanation those words left much unclear but, to those of the public who cared, it was quite the surprise that the Council now regarded tourism as a ‘core business’.
In earlier negotiations with the Council about funding, in which de Chastel played a central role, it seems Tourism Noosa’s chair Richard Stephens and CEO Melanie Anderson believed they would get a good outcome. Then de Chastel sprang his surprise: the Council was to acquire most of the motive parts of Tourism Noosa, lock, stock and bank account.
By June 2021 Tourism Noosa had grasped the reality of its impotence in the relationship. CEO de Chastel, without a vote but a powerful, persuasive presence at Council meetings, had guided the changes through. Noosa Council now had full control over what had been the tourism levy, it had assumed the destination management role, and it had made tourism part of its core business.
Stephens and Anderson tried desperately but ineffectually to lobby the Council to change its mind. Stephens circulated a memo, ‘Destination Marketing Funding is in Jeopardy’, urging Tourism Noosa members to petition Councillors. If they did, they got nowhere.
Media releases were issued and made headlines in the local newspaper – ‘Tourism levy explosion’, ‘Tourism funding spat continues’ – but to no avail. Noosa Today, like the State MP, is reluctant to take a position on controversial issues and, in any event, lacks the kind of clout that might influence Councillors. Tourism Noosa had been well and truly pinned down.
This was no small success that de Chastel had achieved, a success that seemed to meet the expectations of the Noosa Parks Association (NPA), its pugnacious president Michael Gloster and the handful of men who fancy themselves as Noosa’s ‘guardians’. Some of these worthies had just completed a local book signing tour to promote a hagiography trumpeting their importance.
Tourism Noosa had been outplayed and its position diminished. It no longer looked like an organisation driving the $850 million Noosa tourism and hospitality sector that employs 6,000 people and generates more than a billion dollars in direct and indirect revenue for the Shire. Tourism Noosa looked like a private soldier forlornly awaiting orders.
Its overriding failure had been laid bare – it had not properly understood, or perhaps not paid attention to, the small but influential group of self-styled guardians, mostly operating in the shadows, who saw Tourism Noosa’s push for greater visitation as a threat, who begrudged its command of millions of dollars to entice more tourists and who, through their considerable sway over Noosa Council, were able to do something about it.
For too many years, Tourism Noosa had failed to justify its economic impact, explain its contribution to the overall community and demonstrate a compelling reason for its existence. When it came under threat, the community did not care.
So in June 2021, due to the efforts of de Chastel and the persistence of Gloster, Noosa Council reined in a hapless Tourism Noosa and incorporated it within its own struggling empire without so much as a beg-your-pardon to the hundreds of businesses that constitute the only foundation the Noosa economy has.
Noosa Council, with a feeble track record of support for business, even hostility towards it, through backroom machinations had decided it needed to control tourism and had taken a big step to do so. But this had not been the first attempt to limit tourism in Noosa Shire.
In 2018, the Council and Tourism Noosa had jointly established a ‘Sustainable Tourism Stakeholder Reference Group’, which is believed to have been inspired by Gloster, approved by then Mayor Tony Wellington and operationalised by de Chastel. Councillor Ingrid Jackson had joined the group and observed its contortions at first hand.
Jackson has written:
“Gloster led the charge by what looked like his side (that is, those members allied with NPA), trying to gain consensus for a ‘tourism cap’ and visitor limits at all Noosa’s tourist ‘hot spots’.
“The preferred strategy, which was fought for by the Wellington / Gloster / Playford associates in the stakeholder group, was to limit tourist numbers, discourage day trippers and control how many people get to go to key localities.
“But debate was hot and consensus was not to be found. Contiguously, Gloster got together with Tourism Noosa to come up with changes in function, which led to Tourism Noosa appointing an Environment and Sustainability Manager [and] then calling itself a ‘destination management’ organisation, rather than a ‘marketing’ organisation’.”
For most of 2018 and 2019, the reference group met fruitlessly, its 20-plus members bogged down in dispute, unable to agree even on what ‘sustainable tourism’ meant. After a final humiliating and abortive attempt to present a fudged and one-sided report to the Council in early 2020, the group was mercifully dissolved.
The ‘sustainable tourism’ approach having failed, let me try to piece together what happened next. It looks like an unperturbed Gloster went on to find a new, and better, pathway. This time it seemed there would be no search for consensus, however engineered. Gloster would go the direct route through the Council.
Playing a key role in this process, it seems, was de Chastel, who represented the Council in periodic funding negotiations with Tourism Noosa. And so was conceived Tourism Noosa’s effective takeover by Noosa Council.
It is unlikely that any Councillor who had been conscious at the time was surprised by the coup when it transpired in June 2021. After all, it had been signalled in the 2021-22 budget papers and likely to have been first discussed as a draft at confidential budget workshops from November 2020.
Ingrid Jackson’s experience as a Councillor provides an understanding of how this might have transpired:
“In the first instance, it would have been presented persuasively to Councillors by the CEO, or perhaps by Michael Shave in his finance role and supported by the CEO. In February 2021 Council approved a process for giving the public a live-streamed overview of the draft budget.
“Then there was public consultation on the Your Say website. Public submissions were received about the Tourism Noosa matter, which were later noted by the Council at a special meeting in April and approved in June.”
A Tourism Noosa staff member, no longer employed there, referred to Jackson’s observation as “notable” when I spoke with them by email for this article. The staffer told me what they had experienced within the tourism body:
“TN had been pressured – in the hope of winning Council favour – in running various environmental programs like Trees for Tourism, Plastic Free Noosa and others. It had also been pressured to spend its limited funds sponsoring events like the Biosphere Awards.”
These attempts to appease Gloster and his mates would have been taken as signs of weakness not conciliation. Some Tourism Noosa insiders realised this and my informant recalled that within the organisation “it was rumoured that Council will slice off some of TN’s money to set up a ‘sustainable tourism division’ with full time staff.” It turned out to be more than idle gossip.
The Council’s current funding agreement with Tourism Noosa, signed in 2017, is on this month’s meeting agenda with a proposal asking Councillors to extend it by another year to end in June 2023. The reason given for the postponement is that the incoming CEO to replace de Chastel has not yet arrived.
A few days ago we learned that this appointment will be further delayed after the selected candidate withdrew for what were said to be “personal reasons”.
However the Council has already absorbed the tourism levy into its general rates, although for the immediate future it would continue to grant Tourism Noosa $2.5 million a year and sequester the usual $400,000 for the Economic Development Unit. This year the unit has a budget of $940,000 and Jackson says it will take under its wing the new destination management function.
Meanwhile Tourism Noosa is said to be riven by internal discord even as it is in the throes of a major review covering its constitution, board, structure and membership. This makes it badly placed for determining its new role, negotiating its future, developing strategy and doing its job effectively.
I have been told that within Tourism Noosa’s management “there is a very deep culture of lack of accountability and that members and directors are largely treated with disdain by staff.”
The Board has nine current directors, most of them appointed by the Board. They are chair Richard Stephens (Accom Noosa); deputy chair Louise Formosa (Eumundi Trading); Graham Bradford (Netanya Noosa); Michael Holmes (Noosa Longboards); Brett Kapernick (Queensland Tourism Industry Council); James Kendall (Noosa Brewing Co); Erina Kilmore (Australia Zoo); Darren McClenaghan (RACV Noosa Resort) and Craig McGovern (Pelican Boat Hire). There is also an observer nominated by Noosa Council, Cr Amelia Lorentson.
At Tourism Noosa’s upcoming annual general meeting, a new Constitution is to be proposed and one-third of directors will finish their term. If the constitutional changes are approved, another one-third will resign to make way for new blood based on ‘skills based criteria’. I was informed that de Chastel was asked to comment on these criteria even before the Board had seen them.
Given that two-thirds of directors are moving on, a glorious opportunity has been presented for the Board to be stacked with NPA-favoured people.
A strategic plan review by NPA in September showed how it had been gearing itself up for a new era in Noosa tourism. The strategy reveals that NPA would press for “a governance firewall separating Noosa’s destination management and destination marketing to guarantee sustainable tourism”.
The Council’s June decision to make itself responsible for Destination Management demonstrated that this objective had been more than achieved.
In 2019, even as the Sustainable Tourism Stakeholder Reference Group began to flounder, Tourism Noosa had diverted some of its budget to what it termed ‘eco-tourism facilitation’.
At the time Tourism Noosa believed this would be a self-protective measure against the push by Gloster to rein in tourism. “They thought it was self-protection, a former Board member told me, “but were played like fools … it bought them no protection at all!”
Tourism Noosa had prepared a report to the reference group stating it had “long had a tourism destination management approach which incorporates sustainability, planning, development, coordination, collaboration and marketing.”
An approving Mayor Wellington reported to the Council in January 2020: “Tourism Noosa has begun to move away from being a Destination Marketing Organisation and more towards becoming a Destination Management Organisation. This … shift in focus by TN also demonstrates that TN is taking their role as part custodians of the Noosa environment seriously.”
At this point, Tourism Noosa perhaps could have been forgiven for thinking it was doing enough to satisfy demands to show greater environmental engagement. In reality however it underestimated the nature of its opponents and had a dim understanding of what it was being lined up for.
The NPA, through Gloster and the self-appointed guardians, wanted nothing less than a cap on tourism and limits on the number of visitors at a number of what were termed tourist ‘hot spots’. They not only wanted the sausage, they wanted its sizzle.
In this context it is worth revisiting Gloster’s PhD thesis of 1999, ponderously titled ‘A Grounded Socio-Ecological Theory for Managing Active Adaptation of Stalemated Social Systems and Localised Vortical Environments’, in which he wrote how, in practical terms, ‘stalemated social systems’ could be ‘actively adapted’.
A favourite tactic was infiltration, and Gloster described how he had used infiltration to ‘actively adapt’ what he designated to be Noosa’s ‘stalemated social systems’:
“The key forums were infiltrated and changed from within by working through existing community organisations, and at times facilitating a changing of the guard of these organisations….”
It was clear Gloster understood the effects of his tactics. “The strain that this process put on the existing institutional structures in Noosa was quite considerable”.
‘Quite considerable’ was a euphemism for the distressing effect on voluntary office bearers resulting from intimidation, smearing, undermining and expulsion, all of which seemed acceptable to Gloster if it meant he got what he wanted. Some associations were demolished. Some good people were driven out of Noosa.
Gloster’s PhD thesis continued with another telling passage: “Not a single community institution, whether it be the chambers of commerce, the tourist association, or conservation organisations, escaped the traumas of internal power struggles, leadership challenges and the like.”
In his thesis, Gloster had described the application of sinister and destructive political behaviour, wrapped bizarrely in the rhetoric of ‘adaptation’ and ‘environment’. Twenty years on, Noosa could observe the subversive re-engineering of its tourist organisation, aided and abetted by Noosa Council.
Gloster and the self-styled guardians seem to believe at core that democracy in Noosa’s local government is a flawed concept. Why should they tolerate others who could destroy the sanctuary? Why relinquish the control they had acquired to protect it? Change, if needed, should be approved only by those who care. And they do not need to be elected. Or as Gloster told me in late 2013, when I first met him, “I decide who’s allowed on to the park.”
‘Destination Management’, thought of in a narrow NPA way like ‘Biosphere’ was structured, to keep out people who were not trusted, reads as jargon for gatekeeping.
And just as UNESCO’s community participation edict was eliminated from the Noosa Biosphere Reserve Foundation (NBRF), so the stakeholder collaboration element seems to be missing from Noosa Council’s concept of Destination Management.
Early in 2019 a bullish Gloster was interviewed by Alan Lander, subsequently an unsuccessful NPA-endorsed candidate in the 2020 Council elections:
“We’ve been so successful in 57 years in shaping Council policy,” Gloster boasted. “Every time you do that, you create enemies. The common thread among the enemies is we must have ‘had an inside run’. So what are we meant to do? Back off like the B-graders? We had to have a heavy influence on town planning because [that] was a really powerful tool.”
It’s time, surely, that Gloster and the guardians racked their cues. They spread ratepayers’ money to cronies through the NBRF, spent big on a bizarre oyster bed project (at present stymied by lack of a State government permit) and curtailed short-term letting through amendments to the Noosa Plan.
They stacked the membership of the Noosa River Stakeholder Advisory Committee (which hasn’t stopped in-fighting), prevented the upgrade of the river car ferry to Noosa North Shore, and had Tourism Noosa apply funds to Trees for Tourism, Plastic Free Noosa, an Environment and Sustainability Manager, and aluminium water bottles.
It’s also well past time that Noosa Council got down to the serious business of building a community free from ‘active adaptation’. This is a society, not a laboratory for divisive experiments in social engineering.
Noosa Council, for which NPA runs a large panel of preferred candidates each election and always manages to get a few up, is in equal need of a shake-up, and that includes the senior staff.
The task of Noosa Council is to provide good and effective governance – and most residents would agree it has a long way to go with that.
Tourism Noosa needs Board members of capability and independence and it must replace those senior managers and staff who have perpetuated a problematic culture and detached the organisation from its members.
Any clean-out should improve Tourism Noosa, not capture it in the interests of the so-called guardians. This must not be the secretive, destructive process we have witnessed so far.
Both organisations are at a nadir. Noosa Council needs to get good at what it is supposed to do: ensuring residents can happily reside and businesses can happily do business.
Local business needs a Council that treats it as an important part of the community fabric, not as a dangerous interloper whose main goal is to wreck the joint.
And tourism, the industry on which Noosa’s economy is built, must be reset in a way that is open, objective, ethical and focused on the community, not a cabal.
