2020-01-13 GC Agenda - Item 10 - Attachment 1 - Report on the Sustainable Tourism Stakeholder Reference Group

        REPORT ON THE SUSTAINABLE TOURISM
          STAKEHOLDER REFERENCE GROUP
Background
Noosa has a wonderful problem: how best to manage its own success.
Noosa’s tourism success is very much a product of resident activism, including some progressive thinkers
who together prevented Noosa from developing in the same way as most other seaside locales.
Of particular note would be the effort by Noosa Parks Association to prevent development of the Noosa
headland, now a key attraction for Noosa and the most visited national park in Queensland. Other factors
include: the rescue of Cooloola from mining, logging and development interests; continuing efforts to
increase protected habitat areas and preserve them, particularly as national parks; limits on building
heights and other big city symbols such as large-scale advertising and traffic lights; plus a well-established
limit on population growth colloquially known as a “population cap”.
All told, this approach to sensitive development has created a Noosa Shire that is renowned for its
sensitivity to the environment and overall focus on sustainability.
In brief, being “green” has been a boon to Noosa’s economy, with not just the tourism sector but also other
businesses benefitting from the Noosa “brand”.
It is now important that Noosa must once again deal with what some perceive to be a looming threat – that
of ever-increasing tourism numbers. Today, tourists are attracted to a place that purposefully limited
development in order to retain a “village feel”. But community concerns have been raised about the
impacts of that very attractiveness and its long-term repercussions for the village feel that many cherish.

The Sustainable Tourism Stakeholder Reference Group (STSRG) comprises representatives from key business,
environment and resident associations across the shire, plus Tourism Noosa and Noosa Council. The
participants represent the following organisations:
Zero Emissions Noosa Inc
Hastings Street Association
Noosa Residents & Ratepayers Association
Noosa Community Biosphere Association
Noosa Junction Association
Noosa Parks Association
Noosaville Business Association
Noosa Chamber of Commerce
Cooroy Area Residents Association
Heart of Pomona
Cooroy Chamber of Commerce
Peregian Beach Community Association
Noosa Integrated Catchment Association
Noosa and District Landcare

The STSRG first met on 7 March 2018. It has met a further 9 times in the intervening period.
The inspiration for creating the STSRG arose from a meeting between Tourism Noosa’s board of directors
and Noosa Council’s councillors. In particular, these discussions were focussed on growing community
concerns about the impacts of tourism on resident amenity. Those resident concerns included matters
pertaining to traffic congestion, access to public places and the impact of events, with regular letters being
published in the local newspapers at the time about such concerns.

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