On its final day in chambers for 2025 Noosa Council adopted a Tourism Noosa Roadmap to steer its Destination Management Plan (DMP), which was endorsed in the same meeting, with Tourism Noosa (TN) delivering it.
Delivered to councillors less than 48 hours before the ordinary meeting last Thursday the Roadmap gained a 3:3 vote, passed with a casting vote from the Chair (Mayor Frank Wilkie) and drew strong criticism from those who opposed it.
The Roadmap staff report recommended the adoption of option 2 that an “evolved” Tourism Noosa would deliver the DMP.
For the delivery and success of the DMP, it was important for council to work with partner organisations and essential for Noosa’s shift toward regenerative tourism to have “a strong aligned local tourism organisation, the report said.
“In May 2025, Council called for a collaborative Roadmap to be developed with Tourism Noosa; detailing council’s future expectations of Tourism Noosa’s role, structure, future focus and actions, and any further funding arrangements aligned with and informed by the final DMP, ensuring consistency of purpose and long-term strategic alignment between Council and Tourism Noosa,” the report states.
Preparation for the Roadmap included a review of Tourism Noosa’s current operating model, was informed by independently conducted benchmarking of “leading destinations globally”, and included an assessment of eight service delivery options.
The options were:
1 Retain Tourism Noosa in its current structure and remit
2 Evolve Tourism Noosa to align with the DMP
3. Reduce Tourism Noosa to a limited, brand-focused role
4. Introduce shared operational services across Noosa organisations
5. Bring all tourism and destination management functions into Council
6. Engage an external agency to manage destination branding and marketing
7. Partner with Regional Tourism Organisation (Visit Sunshine Coast) or external agencies to deliver some or all tourism services
8. Create a new organisation to deliver DMP
Council states among the DMP’s key actions are new approaches to managing day visitors, programs that bring the community and visitors together as joint custodians of the region, initiatives to regenerate hinterland landscapes through sustainable agriculture, and a new stewardship model to guide the visitor economy and explore future funding options.
“Option 2 – Evolve Tourism Noosa to align with the DMP – emerged as the preferred immediate approach, scoring highest for strategic alignment to the requirements of the DMP and lowest risk. This option maintains continuity of core services while embedding cultural change, evolving KPIs, and improving governance,” staff determined in the report.
Prior to the vote councillors delivered addresses on the motion.
In her address Cr Nicola Wilson, who voted against the motion, spoke to many of the issues raised during the debate, as she said:
“The staff recommendation and council resolution of May 2025, put us in a predicament. It predetermined there would be an ongoing relationship and funding agreement with TN even though we were only supposed to be making a decision on funding for 2025-26 financial year.
The resolution directed council and TN staff to agree future service levels, organisational efficiency, revenue diversification plans via a roadmap, essentially to come up with a variation of the status quo, a rethink of the model, a rebrand.
The CEO asked for my input on how this could work, short answer, it wouldn’t without an objective person who’s not involved with either organisation or affected by the decision to take a step back and examine what TN can offer, how it’s own model is working and how it meets council’s needs.
At no point in this discussion have we had any criticism of TN, what TN offers. No one said pull the plug, no one said stop funding them. This whole debate today has been about the process, about the uncertainty of the funding agreement, about the uncertainty in the resolution or in the recommendation and in the resolution that was made last May.
The working group was formed between the council staff who made the recommendation and the TN CEO and I completely appreciate all the work they have done in good faith.
Earthcheck was brought in to research other models internationally, operating in different legislative and economic environments. We didn’t see the scope of work or why certain locations were chosen to benchmark, but there does seem a bit of a focus on pushing the bed tax. There is little research on Australian LTOs (Local Tourism Organisations) and RTOs (Regional Tourism Organisations) that the resolution required. We’re briefly told that Noosa Council contribution of $34 per capita is higher than comparative reasons without stating what they are.
There’s eight RTOs and eight LTOs researched. We’re also told TN operates on a scale staffing economic impact closer to an RTO without saying why or whether it needs to given it’s an LTO.
Option 2 did not emerge as the preferred outcome because it was set out in council resolution in May. I’m not convinced the other options got as much consideration. The analysis we have now in terms of scoring is inconsistent across the options so I can’t rely on that to support a decision. The recommendation of option 2 sets a base of $2m with events funded by council. No real saving. No DMP is included in this amount and the Plastic Free Noosa program is not included. So this model can’t actually support an evolved DMP-aligned option and an additional $400,000 is required to deliver on a DMP and when we bring in CPI we’re back where we started at $2.5m.
The recommendation is to fund for three years.
So that’s over $7m recommended funding. There’s been no community or industry consultation specifically on this matter, no survey questions in the DMP directly asked about TN’s funding over the next three years. There was strong support for a review of the current model. Respondents voluntarily made written submissions including comments on TN’s funding, overwhelmingly against funding or increasing funding to TN. That’s the only consultation we currently have in this recommendation that’s contrary to that. I’m not prepared to make a decision on a potential $7m with poor analysis, a Roadmap that doesn’t meet fully the requirements of the May resolution and especially that’s not in consultation with industry stakeholders and residents.
We still have no justification on this baseline of $2m per year, just the status quo, nothing to support the staffing structure, identifying efficiencies or revenue diversification plans, only that it’s funded by business. To me this isn’t not a Roadmap it’s a research paper. The Roadmap should tell us how the preferred option will be implemented and what it will cost. We just have vague timelines that promise things like future revenue diversification. We’ve got subjective terms but no real evidence.”
In his address Cr Frank Wilkie, who supported the motion, said:
“It’s easy enough to say you support Tourism Noosa, you support Noosa having a future and then the real test is to then vote for a plan that addresses those things.
Words are nothing unless they’re back up with action.
We’re faced with an uncertain future. We are going into unchartered territory. That’s why we have a Roadmap to help get us there.
There is extensive research, benchmarking. It may not necessarily support your view but it is sound benchmarking. It is an excellent standard of work.
It’s easy enough to pick holes if you don’t want to support something. If you don’t want to support something, don’t support it but to make out this piece of work and the direction this council is going in is somehow in breach of the Local Government Act requirements of transparency and governance is absurd.
We have excellent pieces of work through the DMP which is reflected in the Noosa Tourism Roadmap. We have expectation from people in this community, mainly in the tourism industry who are community members, who have families, schools and sporting groups, who rely on a sustainable, long term, regenerative tourism industry and are putting their trust in us to make the right decision today and that is for funding for a responsible and effective tourism, marketing body to continue.
We’ve got a Roadmap of how that can take place. For us to say that we support Tourism Noosa, we support giving Noosa a future.”
