There is growing Noosa community anger that our council is asleep at the wheel, failing to future-proof Noosa Shire from over-crowding and over-tourism. 

Last year nearly 50% of visitors to Noosa Shire were day-trippers, but they generated only 10% of the total tourist spend, while just over half stayed overnight or longer – generating 90% of the total tourist spend.

Unless Noosa Council forensically focuses on rapidly producing and implementing a practical day-tripper management strategy, increased over-crowding and over-tourism is all but inevitable. 

Instead of taking urgent action to manage day-tripper impacts, at its Special Meeting of 9 May, Noosa Council decided to fund Tourism Noosa to the tune of $2 million for the coming year, and to produce a ‘roadmap’ towards a poorly defined Noosa Destination Management Plan.  It’s the sort of roadmap that gets people lost very quickly.

There was no discussion on how an effective day-tripper management strategy can make, or how an ineffective one will break, a Noosa Destination Management Plan.

There was no discussion about how, by getting an effective Noosa Council day-tripper management strategy worked out first, a Noosa Destination Management Plan could easily and logically follow.

There was no attempt to make further Council funding of Tourism Noosa contingent on it immediately and genuinely collaborating with Noosa Council to develop a practical and effective day-tripper management strategy.

These significant opportunities were not raised by council staff either in their written report to the mayor and councillors prior to the Special Meeting or during the meeting. Why not? 

Had Noosa Council and Tourism Noosa staff already quietly agreed on a preferred staff-centric way forward? And are Noosa’s Mayor and Councillors and Tourism Noosa Directors being treated as mushrooms? 

Why it is important for Noosa Council to focus on managing day trippers 

It is now all but inevitable that Noosa Shire will soon be swamped by a tsunami of drive-in day-trippers unless Noosa Council rapidly produces and implements an effective day-tripper management strategy. 

Significant residential population increases are now locked in by State government regional planning processes – from Noosa Shire southwards along the Sunshine Coast and beyond, and northwards between Tin Can Bay, Hervey Bay, and Bundaberg. 

If only a very small percentage of residents in the rapidly growing suburban sprawls to the south and north of Noosa Shire decide to pack the kids into the car for a day trip to Noosa every now and then, stand by for over-crowding and over tourism for more and more days each year. 

To pretend otherwise is delusional. 

In an earlier edition of Noosa Matters former Noosa mayor Tony Wellington has outlined what a Noosa day-tripper management strategy could look like.  

Unless Noosa Council rapidly develops and implements a practical and effective day-tripper management strategy to prevent over-crowding and over-tourism, the experience of living in or visiting Noosa Shire will be no different from the southern Sunshine Coast or the Gold Coast.  

Noosa community values can form the bedrock of a Noosa Council day-tripper management strategy

Three core Noosa community values have been forged in the heat of conservation vs development vs tourism battles over the past forty plus years:

• Progressively protecting Noosa Shire’s most iconic beaches, waterways, forests, and heathlands as a regional-scale national park estate.
• Progressively shaping a network of communities as distinctive village settlements sitting lightly within this regional national park estate.
• Openly welcoming visitors to enjoy the natural treasures of a perpetually protected natural environment and the cultural richness of a network of community villages sitting lightly within a regional national park estate.

Over the past 40 plus years, these three core Noosa community values have influenced the tourism management approach of every Noosa Council and each Noosa peak tourism organisation (Noosa District Tourism Association in the 1980s, Noosa Enterprise Group in the 1990s, and Tourism Noosa in the 2000s).

These are community values that have withstood the test of time. They are why Noosa has evolved as it has.

They have underpinned Noosa community success in expanding the proportion of Noosa Shire perpetually protected as National Park from less than 1% in 1962 to over 40% today.

They have underpinned Noosa community success in persuading successive Noosa Councils to push the boundaries of town planning innovation to shape the development of a network of village settlements sitting lightly within a regional scale national park estate. 

And they have guided why and how we as a Noosa community have continued to openly welcome visitors to country and community.

As importantly, over the past forty years successive State governments, regardless of political persuasion, have been successfully lobbied by the Noosa community and Noosa Councils to back the Noosa community’s three core values because the State has seen the benefits of allowing Noosa Shire to evolve as an iconic place to live and visit. .

The way forward for Noosa

Noosa Council must now rapidly develop and implement a day-tripper management strategy to protect Noosa from over-crowding and over-tourism.

The Noosa community’s three core values can form the bedrock of the strategy.

On many occasions over the past 40-plus years, the Noosa community has challenged Noosa Council to adopt community-generated big ideas, and to its enormous credit, Noosa Council has graciously done so.

By listening to its community and by crafting and implementing a day-tripper management strategy built on core community values, this Noosa Council can distinguish itself as one that is capable of rising to its biggest challenge.