Noosa: the great irony

By Tony Wellington*, first published in Noosa Matters Noosamatters.com.au

The great irony for tourism destinations goes like this: the more you make a place wonderful, both to live and visit, the more you attract people that will ultimately undermine the very qualities that make the location so appealing. Noosa isn’t alone here. On a bigger scale, the same process is occurring everywhere from Barcelona to Yosemite National Park. This begs the question, is it possible to create a tourism destination that maintains its uniqueness, or are all such destinations fated to be homogenised in the big tourism slow cooker? Many hotspots are grappling with this problem, as tourism plays havoc with their local ambience, natural environment and resident amenity.

Some years ago, the Netherlands stopped promoting inbound travel altogether to stem what was already dubbed over-tourism. This year, Amsterdam even ran a “Stay Away” campaign to actively discourage tourists, particularly heavy drinkers from Britain. Italy’s Cinque Terre attempted to reduce tourist numbers by stopping access once they reached 1.5 million visitors in a year (at the time they were copping more than 2.5 million). Access to some of the Cinque Terre trails still requires purchase of permit cards. And I’m sure all readers will be familiar with the problem facing Venice, where short stay accommodation, cruise ships and tour companies have muscled out locals and tourist overcrowding has become the norm.

There has been a mass of international research that clearly shows increased tourism numbers does not equate with increased revenue for local economies. What happens when places become very crowded is that they simply attract a different sort of visitor – generally one who has little regard for the local culture, visits briefly, simply wants to tick the destination off their list, and spends no more than the price of a gelato and tacky memento.

For some years leading up to the Covid era, Tourism Noosa spent none of its advertising budget on drive-in and single-day tourists. Instead, it had an explicit “value over volume” approach that focussed entirely on high-yield, longer-stay tourists, particularly those from Sydney, Melbourne and overseas. But Covid saw tourism and business operators panic. The new approach, according to one of Tourism Noosa’s own strategy documents, is to “reimagine our Tourism Strategy, and subsequent actions, to ensure that Noosa’s tourism industry benefits from every single opportunity to attract visitors to the region.”

This year, Noosa Council signed a new tourism funding agreement with Tourism Noosa that ensures the latter receives $2.52 million of Council’s (resident’s) moolah each year. That’s on top of the funds Tourism Noosa garners from membership fees, booking fees, grants etc. Meanwhile, it is we residents that pay for much of tourism’s impact on public infrastructure, including public toilet facilities, road and footpath wear-and-tear, removal of rubbish from public sites, maintenance of parks and beaches, free buses and so on.

If any councillor tries to spin you the line that the funding of Tourism Noosa is being subsidised by increased rates on short-stay accommodation properties, consider the following: firstly, all rates revenue goes into general funds, so the rates paid by “STA” properties are not siloed, and, secondly, any additional rate revenue should go towards properly policing the STA local laws and/or paying for public infrastructure impacted by tourists. In my day, Noosa businesses paid the tourism levy on a pro rata basis. Under the current Council, that has changed, and now all ratepayers are now expected to fund the bureaucracy of Tourism Noosa and its efforts to bring even more tourists here.

Tourism Noosa’s advertising continues to portray pretty couples (dressed in white, of course) strolling on an empty Tee Tree beach, walking along the Main Beach boardwalk with hardly a soul in sight, and drifting through a Hastings Street devoid of people. They’re actively conning punters into thinking that tourist numbers are minimal, and that Noosa retains its village feel. It doesn’t.

Tourism Noosa

NOOSA VALUES

I perhaps don’t need to explain to you that Noosa’s special qualities – sometimes dubbed “Noosa values” – were hard won over decades, dating back to 1962 when Dr Arthur Harrold established the Noosa Parks Association and began lobbying to prevent the Noosa headland foreshore from being developed. Thus began an ongoing process of converting state forests into national park and maintaining a focus on the natural environment.

Later, primarily under Noel Playford’s mayoralty, the low-key liveability of the built environment was established, with an avoidance of big city symbols like advertising hoardings and traffic lights, along with a very conscious approach to maintain a village atmosphere and limit urban development. There was even what was euphemistically known as a “population cap” which idealised the carrying capacity for the shire. Of course, this cap (in reality, every planning scheme in the state operates as a sort of cap on development) is only as good as the State Government’s regional planning approach.

While staff and I were able to hold the line during the development of the 2017 SEQ Regional Plan, and thus ensure there was no increase in the urban footprint for Noosa, that may not be possible in the near future. It certainly won’t be feasible without a Council that is willing to fight against pressure from the State for Noosa to accommodate many more people.

Meanwhile, the overall demographics of Noosa have shifted. In my council days, we expected the “churn” rate in Noosa to be around thirty per cent every four years. But short stay accommodation and escalating land values may have changed all that. The values and expectations of the resident population are arguably shifting along with rapid demographic change.

BOILING FROGS. ARE WE AWARE OF HOW NOOSA IS CHANGING?

When I moved here a few decades ago, there were low tourism seasons, when the shire and its resident populace gave a collective sigh of relief following each holiday onslaught. To fill these voids, the tourism sector encouraged large-scale events to attract more tourists. Now, of course, there is no effective low season in Noosa.

Yes, tourism dollars flow through the local economy, and many residents benefit from that money stream. But not everyone benefits. Yet every resident pays, either through loss of amenity or via Council expenses. And the incremental increase in tourism – both tourist numbers and the arrival of new tourism-focussed businesses – is like the proverbial boiling frog: it happens smoothly so that the constant upsurge is not noticed (unless you have lived here for decades and have a good memory).

Has Noosa reached or even surpassed peak tourism? How would we know? Despite the best of intentions of its volunteer participants, the Destination Management project control group that was announced by Council with great fanfare in 2022 has not met for more than six months at the time of writing this article. It has yet to produce a document, statement or even a sense of purpose. Meanwhile, Council’s Economic Development team has engaged a consultant to apply for “eco-accreditation” for the shire. I fear this is less about genuine sustainability than it is simply another marketing tool to encourage even more tourists. Indeed, eco-accreditation for a tourism mecca is farcical without a genuine Destination Management Plan already in place.

Should tourism be a touch-stone issue for the upcoming local government elections? Yes. Will any candidate have the spine to tackle such a thorny topic – and face the wrath of the business sectors that are fearful of any constraints placed on the endless tourism gravy train? I doubt it.

When I was on Noosa Council, we set up the Sustainable Tourism Stakeholder Reference Group, which included representatives from tourism, business, and the community. It aimed to tackle these very issues. The group hadn’t concluded its work by the time the 2020 election occurred. With the support of the Local Government Association, I also helped motivate the State Government to establish a short-term accommodation reference group. It was considering the possibility of state legislation to help regulate Airbnb and their ilk. After the 2020 local and state government elections, including the departure of the Minister for Tourism, Kate Jones, all that work simply got squirreled away and ignored.

My interests in destination management spooked the local chambers of commerce and many in the real estate sector. But sometime, something has to give. Otherwise, Noosa will end up like too many other tourism hotspots.

FOR ME, IT’S PERSONAL

Let me be blunt. Noosa is for residents first and foremost. That doesn’t mean zero tourists. As I say, tourism is an important part of the local economy. But without defined, measurable targets and controls, Noosa will become an increasingly unpleasant and expensive place to live. Ever escalating traffic congestion, homes converted to party venues, increasing pressure on the natural environment, and rising costs of living will further undermine resident and natural amenity.

A couple of disclosures are required. I am a life member of Noosa Parks Association. I worked on the various campaigns to have Noosa de-amalgamated from the regional council. I have been a councillor on both the amalgamated Sunshine Coast Council and the Noosa Council, and I have been mayor of Noosa. I am tired, burnt out and cynical. I cannot lead the sort of resident revolution which is Noosa’s last chance to prevent our shire becoming just another chunk of the Sunshine Coast, and pretty much like so many other tourist traps.

There’s nowhere else that I would rather live than the Noosa hinterland. But I now limit my forays into the coastal strip and have given away surfing entirely. The crowds in the surf have reached a level of absurdity. I will continue to enjoy our hard-won conservation areas and their protected wildlife, but less so the protected species that is the hit-and-run, low-spending, drive-in, day-tripper tourist.

What sort of Noosa do you want to see in five, ten, or twenty years’ time?

* Tony Wellington is former Mayor of Noosa, author, photographer, artist, film-maker, lecturer, musician, social commentator and environmentalist.

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Editor's Note:

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