Further Report - Tourism Noosa Funding And Performance Deed 2026–2029

And then Anthony and I can answer questions as you we. Want to come. Thank you. Yeah, sorry, I'll take the report as read but I'll give you the quick executive summary. A report on the Tourism Noosa funding and performance deed 26-29 was presented to was presented to the General Committee on the 13th of April 2026 and considered by Council on the 16th of April 2026. At that meeting, Council resolved not to adopt the deed in its then current form and requested further refinement of schedule KPI's appointment of a Councillor to the working group and that a revised deed and KPI framework be presented to the June meeting round. This report, this further report, responds directly to that resolution and presents a revised Tourism Noosa funding and performance deed and updated schedules. For Council consideration. The focus working group process was undertaken including Councillor input to review and restructure the performance framework. The revised deed restructures the original schedule 1 separating its combined deliverables and KPIs into two distinct schedules. 1: agreed obligations and deliverables and schedule 2: performance scorecard or KPIs. In addition the original schedule performed 2 performance adjustment methodology has been revised and simplified into a new schedule 3 performance adjustment calculation which introduces a clear scoring model linked to the scorecard. This revised structure clarifies the distinction between mandatory obligations and performance measurement, introduces a balanced scorecard approach to measuring outcomes across financial management, industry capability, destination positioning, and sustainable management, and simplifies the performance-based funding adjustments through a points model. The revised deed retains the core funding model of $2 million per annum ex GST for a three-year term with CPI indexation and a performance-based adjustment of up to $350,000 applied to the second instalment on council's annual assessment of performance. This schedule seeks Council consideration and approval of the revised deed and schedules. Thank you.

Brian Stockwell243:08

Right, I'll just so welcome back and our next item of order of business is the further report on Tourism Noosa of funding and performance day 2026 2029 the author is our CEO. And you'll be giving the executive summary or we'll?

I think that is it is the maintaining flexibility while giving Tourism Noosa in the community certainty is a difficult balance I'm certainly I think the working group has worked really well to have those quarterly and annual reviews so every quarter you'll see in schedule one action one the number one is every quarter Tourism Noosa Sir and Noosa Council sits down and reviews what's going well what's coming up and how are we meeting expectations and is there something we need to respond to so that's a quarterly operational there's a quarterly report annual reports on your plan strategies so I think the answer to today's is not a set and forget deed and relationship legally we review every year we can reset schedules and performance measures so I totally agree that there's a lot of uncertainty and for all of us and so this isn't this certainly not structured to say that's it for a year or three years it's three months while providing some certainty for the organisation to do the job that's how it's structured

Amelia Lorentson328:39

Yeah I'll speak, today what's in front of us and what we can committed measure. To is 6.2 million dollars of rate-paying money to Tourism Noosa and I think what I'm I've been you know again reading the performance deed. We're giving that money based on performance that's going to be measured almost entirely on its own internal activities. Social media engagement, website traffic, membership numbers, training attendance. Indeed, reports submissions. Keep coming back to none of those measures tell us whether a Noosa resident is better off and that's the question that the community have been asking us. Go back to the desk. Destination stewardship. And the amendment that I'll try to put through. That was our community voice. It was a mechanism that was built into the deed but according to the deed it can still be ignored without explanation or consequence. The community that the participated in the DMP process participated on the understanding that the invoice would shape tourism governance in the Shire. That's what they were told. And the body established to carry that forward, the Destination Stewardship Council, according the deed, is still it's still purely advisory. After today, when a resident comes up to us and asks us, and they will, whether $6.2-point million dollars that we're committing today is going to make tourism work better for this community, I don't know about you, but I'm not going to have a straightforward answer. We have organisational activity metrics, that's what's in the deed. We'll have social media numbers, that's in the deed. We'll have response submissions, that's in the deed. But we won't have what the community has asked for, which was an independent measure of community experience. And that was my attempt through all the many failed amendments that I've put through. We're not going to have auditable evidence that council's money is being directed at the right markets. We won't have a clear map of who's responsible for what in the destination management system. I'm going to put on record, I am not going to be supporting this motion, and not because I'm against tourism in Noosa not succeeding, and not because I believe tourism is bad for this community. Tourism done well is one of the best things that happen can happen to a place like Noosa. It sustains local businesses, our neighbours, mums and dads, it supports local employment, my kids, and it generates the economic activity that flows through to done well, tourism is good for everyone. But tourism done well requires accountability, it requires a performance framework connected to community outcomes. Requires honesty about who's responsible for what. It requires a community voice to be genuinely heard and it requires an organisation receiving two million dollars a year of public money to prove its value in terms of where the whole community can see and verify, not just parts that already believe in it. That was the standard that I was trying to move today and unfortunately the strangford did not support it. So I cannot in good conscience support a deed that falls short of it. And I'm going to close by reiterating what I said part of the amendment discussions. A lot of mention was made about we can't undermine the can't undermine the working group. We can't undermine the working group. Again, we've got to remember who we work for. And what we are potentially undermining is, again, the trust this community has placed in all of us around this table. Remembering that $6.2 million is money that my husband works seven days for. I work seven days for. So unfortunately today, I cannot support the deed in its current form.

Nicola Wilson339:18

You Mr Chair thank okay cancer Wilson thank you for the comments around the table and I do agree with the challenges that we've had in this process I've been quite vocal about that previous meetings about the steps that led us to this point including a decision over a one-year agreement into a Roadmap for three years so personally I didn't support the DMP for the Roadmap but I do respect that now a Council decision and that regardless of how everyone votes today we're still committed to giving tourism Noosa for two million dollars per year regardless of whether you agree with this thing so working with that I'll repeat a few things I said at the start whenever our views on the Roadmap and the DMP funding amount we are stuck with that decision of two million dollars over three years and what we've been working on in the working group this last few months is trying to just make the best of that and try and develop some KPIs that lead us towards the strategic goals that two million dollars are used to support delivery of agreed services including destination marketing, visitor servicing, industry development, partnerships and research and insights. With respect it's not about finding out whether the community is better off as a result of tourism but I would love for someone to suggest a KPI on that um because we'd happily add it in but um from all the different suggestions I got from the community there was nothing that we could use to measure that so I do welcome feedback on that but it's not we're asking Tourism Noosa to deliver on um but we have had conversations that say that we will look for ways to set some baseline data over community sentiment and absolutely measure that over time but right now it isn't something that we can measure because we don't have a baseline or a methodology um in terms of the marketing um while we might not be prescriptive in the kpis about how much money is spent where Council will have visibility over the marketing plan um which does specify the campaigns it's normally a summer campaign a winter campaign maybe a couple of others um sort of activity based potentially so we will know exactly what those campaigns will be in advance and know where that money is being spent um but we are moving into uncertain economic times and TN will have to adapt to conditions to support their members and support the industry so we can't be too restrictive on where they can spend marketing spend if as the year progresses and we get updates things have changed and they need to divert their spending somewhere else that's TN at the end of the day is a separate entity with its own CEO and own board and they have to make those decisions to make sure that they're supporting the industry and as well as the community if we see a drop in engagement because people are not spending money on holidays anymore because they don't like the regenerative messaging then TN is going to have to adapt to that. We need to give them the freedom and flexibility to do that. In terms of making two references to undermining the working group, what I mean by that is we've spent two months looking at many, possible KPIs and trying to get this balanced approach, and that compared to throwing a suggestion in at the last minute to decide on the fly, I think that's unfair to the process. Was one thing. And as I said, I have received many suggestions from people that have been tested with the working group and the community as well in the conversations. So I think I will end I'm certainly not excited to be in this position either, but we have tried to make the best of what we've got and come up with something that gives us some strategic direction for the next year, noting that only the first year we will revisit for the second year and to get on with actually it, so yeah. Signing the deed and letting TN get on with the job so that we can actually assess their performance instead of them spending all their time on the deed.

Amelia Lorentson304:44

Again I'm going to start with one of the recommendations I spend a lot of time in community a of time in lot community meeting with residents on all sorts of issues this was an idea that was put to me by some residents and I played with it so I want to start by saying that the current schedule 2 performance scorecard has 20 KPIs and not one tells Council where Tourism Noosa is directing its paid advertising. Not one measures where the council's money is being spent reaching the visitors the DMP says Noosa wants to attract and not one reflects the central and explicit commitment to quality over quantity and overnight visitors over daytrippers. To me that's a really big gap in the six point two million dollar funding agreement and I think again I think the KPIs or the amendment in front of us the intent is to try to close that gap. DMP commits Council to quality over quantity. Overnight visitors over daytrippers. Higher value, lower pressure. Tourism that delivers economic benefit to the community without overwhelming its infrastructure, environment and liveability but a policy that's not reflected in the performance framework of the organisation, paid to deliver it is not a policy, it's just a wish. The current scored card doesn't require Tourism Noosa to direct its marketing at overnight visitors and it doesn't tourism prevent Noosa from spending ratepay money advertising Noosa to people within 150 kilometres who will drive up for the day, use the beaches and roads and drive home without spending a night or contributing meaningful to the local economy. Day visitors use noosa's assets but they don't fund them. And I do have to note day visitors are also good for some parts of the economy and I do want to acknowledge that. Residents fund our assets. Through our rates. Overnight visitors fund our assets through accommodation spending and the broader economic activity that sustains local businesses and employment. Tourism Noosa is using council's money to attract day visitors from and the Sunshine Coast. It's actively working against what council's own plan says tourism in Noosa should look like. And again, that's the purpose of the KPIs. All the amendment in front of us. So. KPIs in front of us, they're not there to measure visitor behaviour. What I'm asking or the intent behind the amendment is that we've got. An opportunity to measure advertising decisions. The targeting records for every paid campaign Tourism Noosa runs already exists in its own advertising accounts. We can go to the google ads records. We can find out exactly what geographic areas have been targeted. How much has been spent on each audience. The metas advertising platform does the same thing. So what I'm saying is that information already exists. We can already measure where they advertise. So what I'm asking again is not onerous. We're not asking Tourism Noosa to commission or purchase the data. It already exists and it exists in Council at Tourism Noosa managers and controls and funds with Council money. So it should be able to be provided to Council at any time with no additional cost. So, you know, go back to, we get told a lot that marketing campaigns are effective at influencing visitor behaviour, but we need to be measure that outcome against specific KPIs, and that, again, doesn't exist in the performance and funding agreement. So, you know, so what I'm asking is, I think this is an opportunity for us to actually measure their marketing campaigns are actually effective in influencing our day trippers. Um, and the information already exists. Tourism Noosa has that information. Um, so again, throw it at the table. Uh, and again, I throw at the table that we've got to remember why we're sitting here providing. Revising the funding agreement, and that is because our community has asked us to ensure that the accountability measures that we put in place a commensurate against the investment of a three-year funding agreement.