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

Tourism Noosa has established its own environment and sustainability guidelines for events which they
support. The focus has been on minimising waste to landfill as well as the introduction of a levy on event
participants to support the Trees for Tourism program.
What Next?
Noosa Council plans to develop a land use master plan for the Hastings Street precinct that will further
establish parameters for events and other uses of public land in this high profile precinct.
Noosa Council will review its events policies as required.
Both Tourism Noosa and Noosa Council will encourage further sustainability actions by events operators
across the shire.



3. Short-Stay Accommodation
The issue of short-stay accommodation has come up regularly during STSRG meetings. It is clear that the
recent rapid rise of on-line booking platforms such as Airbnb and Stayz has significantly increased the total bed
capacity of the shire. This has no doubt been a boon for many tourism businesses as well as accommodation
managers and support services.
Recent data analysis has identified more than 3,000 individual properties in the Shire that are being let
on-line. Of course, a significant number of these are properties that were traditionally being let through real
estate agents, property managers and resort managers. However, a quick look at the map below shows that
these properties have also spread into non-traditional tourist areas including residential suburbs.




Whilst the tourism sector is experiencing good economic times, there has been little push-back from
traditional accommodation providers to this relatively new “disruptive” sector. However, that tolerance
could change should we experience a tourism down-turn?
From Council’s point of view, the advent of short-stay on-line booking sites and peer-to-peer letting has
presented a series of land-use issues. Council’s planning team receive regular complaints about loss of
resident amenity resulting from houses being let to tourists. Although so-called party houses represent the
extreme end of this continuum, even properties let to families and the like for holiday use may generate
conflicts with permanent residents. This is because people on holiday tend not to keep the same hours nor
behave in the same way as people who are working. Apart from noise amenity, issues also arise with regards

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