BY JOHN SPENCER
This is in response to Mayor Tony Wellingtons letter (Noosa News November 27th). The furore over the New Years’ Eve party – yet another “event” on public land in Noosa – leads me to reflect on the attitudes to tourism of the main players – Tourism Noosa and Noosa Shire Council led by Mayor Wellington.
In policy and “vision” documents both Tourism Noosa and the mayor use the term “sustainable” when describing their approach to tourism levels as if that term means something good. It does not. “Sustainable” is an adjective that means only what the user wants it to mean. When applied to tourism it can mean many things.
In the case of Tourism Noosa “sustainable” clearly means resort and hotel bed occupancy of 100%, 365 days a year, as many events as can be crammed into the calendar, permanent congestion and many days where local residents are denied the use of town amenities, roads and parking.
In the case of Mayor Wellington, who says “it’s council policy”, sustainable clearly means whatever Tourism Noosa wants because the council funds Tourism Noosa. That policy needs changing.
Given the frequent congestion, loss of access to amenities such as main beach for residents, overcrowding and general lowering of standards, it could be argued that the present level of tourism is unsustainable.
It is interesting to speculate on why the Council has this policy which is so damaging for the quality of life for Noosa residents. It can only be money. Can residents please see the balance sheets for these events? Who pays for things, who gets the profits and how much does the council get out of it? It may be that council gets sufficient reward from these events to justify the loss of amenity for residents as the money (hopefully) is well spent elsewhere.
On the other hand it may be that the council gets nothing and the rewards go only to the hotel, resort and hospitality sector.
We need transparency on the finance around these events.
John Spencer
Noosaville
I’ll bite.
John, it’s one thing to say what you believe is wrong. Moving to a fix or two is hard but possible.
So let’s look to what might be a fix – one that maintains economic balance, community opportunity (jobs and sense of place) and has possibilities.
Example- both Brisbane in the early ’90s the Sydney mid the same decade commenced a shift from high-volume / low-income tourism to low-volume / high-income business events. Both initiated infrastructure and marketing strategies to shift sections of the market in their favour. Both were successful although the shift took twice as long as anticipated.
The ‘icons’ of both strategies were, in part, state-of-the-art convention and exhibition facilities. Business-tourism is a specialised market. It demands such annoying details like superior quality retail (like we used to have in Hastings St.); service staff who engaged with you with cuisine expertise; tours and excursions which are expertly interpreted using local uniqueness (like a biosphere and a superb natural environment lessons) and entertaining people; cultural exchange and experiences of top quality; accommodation which is up there with the best and friendly locals.
We have no hope … or do we?