In July 2022, Noosa Council commenced a project to draft a Destination Management Plan (DMP) and I was invited to join the External Reference Group (ERG).
At some stage since then, the decision was made to first proceed with a discussion paper which has now been drafted and will very shortly be released for consultation.
I need to state that the ERG – that I was part of – had no input into the content of the discussion paper but I am supportive of the strategy behind it. How the DMP is developed from here, however, is yet to be determined by the consultation process and the inevitable resistance to change which will occur.
Most people will ask; what is Regenerative Tourism? Well, it’s a behavioural strategy which requires behavioural change. It is a holistic way of looking at tourism which focuses on requiring visitors to act in a way which contributes to the place, its residents and to the environment.
It looks at tourism not as a product to market but as occurring in a living community – our community – where resources are shared but preserved and protected for the benefit of residents, tourists and future generations. In this way it goes further than Sustainable Tourism which seeks simply to minimise the harmful effects of tourism.
Regenerative Tourism goes much further. It is tourism with a purpose, a force for good, with benefits to be shared equitably across the community and across the year.
It looks at different key indicators of success such as residents benefitting from tourism instead of just measuring the number of tourist arrivals. It looks at community satisfaction rather than just visitor satisfaction. It looks at job satisfaction and quality of employment rather than the number of jobs created.
Noosa is a great place to live, work and visit. It has maintained building heights (mostly) to tree height, installed roundabouts rather than traffic lights and tried to minimise traffic congestion and parking problems while providing access to National Parks, beaches, accommodation and shops.
Residents have chosen to live here because of our relatively low-key lifestyle, our climate, facilities, environment and our towns and communities separated by green space.
Visitors also find it attractive to visit for the same reasons, but excessive visitor numbers and density can cause problems for residents and also reduce the level of visitor satisfaction.
Resident satisfaction is essential or visitor satisfaction will inevitably decline.
We have seen the resident dissatisfaction which has increased dramatically from the growth in Short-Term Accommodation (STA), especially in areas where STAs have significantly reduced the number of residents and introduced visitors who do not necessarily consider the right of residents for peace and quiet, overwhelm facilities and increase traffic congestion and car-parking issues. In Peregian Beach, for instance, more than half of the accommodation on the ocean side of David Low Way is now for visitors. We know this as the ‘hollowing out’ of neighbourhoods.
We want visitors who understand what makes this place special.
Noosa residents are prepared to share the enjoyment of our natural environment and let nature regenerate visitors. We should welcome visitors to the Noosa Biosphere, and explain to them that to combat the Climate Emergency they can assist us in decarbonising the Shire and protecting our environment while enjoying their visit to Noosa.
We could even contemplate having visitors promise to care for country, skies, waterways, creatures and each other during their visit, as they do in New Zealand. It’s not enforceable, but it sends a strong message.
Decarbonising the shire should become a prerequisite for regenerative tourism. “Different by nature” needs to be maintained and not just marketed.
Tourism Noosa previously has sought to market Noosa to high value tourists rather than volume tourists. Regenerative Tourism will require a behavioural change. We need to encourage visitors who share our values and will strive to protect and improve this place we love.
Should Tourism Noosa market our communities, the Biosphere and all our natural resources in a way which ensures that visitors not only enjoy Noosa when they visit – but value and preserve these features for future residents and visitors?
The discussion paper consultation will seek to identify what residents expect tourism to provide to our community. This might require a reassessment, for example, of whether low paid jobs for people who cannot find low priced accommodation provide sufficient benefit to our community.
It might involve an evaluation of whether residents share in the benefits of extra facilities because of visitors, or just bear the costs while the visitors extract the benefits.
There is no doubt that the discussion paper will create an interesting and long overdue conversation and this will flow into next year’s election.
As an outcome, we need more than a glossy covered plan full of motherhood statements without a strategy for implementation or performance indicators to measure success or failure.
The involvement of the community in the consultation will be extremely important and it cannot be left to the industry participants to resist this opportunity to change behaviour or to determine the outcome.
The Destination Management Plan will be subject to further community consultation after the election and, hopefully, will be a plan which is much more likely to benefit the environment, the Noosa communities, industry participants and visitors.
This is a big deal for Noosa, and we must ensure it’s done properly.
(While Barry is president of Peregian Beach Community Association Inc. this is a personal opinion – at this stage).
At the PBCA meeting on 10 September the following motion was passed and carried unanimously:
“PBCA supports Noosa Council‘s approach of working towards implementing regenerative tourism, which will benefit residents, visitors and industry participants and maintain Noosa as a place in which to live and visit into the future”.
