Ice cream tourists
I SUPPORT Richard Dax in expressing concern over mass tourism ( Mercury, January 4). As a lifelong conservationist, I’ve always been a fan of genuine ecotourism, where well-informed guides take small groups for an unforgettable, mudon-your-boots, life-changing experience.
Tasmania is wonderfully well-placed to do this, but the opportunity is getting drowned out in a deluge of PR nonsense like sustainable growth. In an interview with The Australian in September, Trafalgar Tours CEO Gavin Tollman warns of the dangers of “ice cream tourists” as they call them in Venice.
There’s money around for lots of this stuff, high-rise hotels beautified by hanging gardens, cable cars for cruise ship passengers, package tours from big East Asian cities, or nature-based tourism from the
Housing sadness
COMMON Ground: How can this fabulous, well-proved example of a community working together for improved lives for marginalised citizens have been sold out from under their very noses? The residents were promised permanent tenancies as long as they paid their rent and kept their noses clean. Now they’re being turfed out when their lease expires. I was involved with the preparation side of Common Ground and was pleased and proud something so valuable was being made available locally. What happened?
Wasted opportunity
IT’S a shame the Liberal Party has squandered an opportunity to rid Tasmania of poker machines in line with some clearly emerging community expectations. In a speech to the House of Assembly after being elected in 2006, Peter Gutwein deplored the backroom deals and alleged
Small is good
THE Property Council spruiking growth of the Tasmanian population by 34,000 over the next four years as a way of stimulating the economy is about as sustainable as giving a junkie their next hit to stimulate a feeling of wellbeing. Continuous population growth is not a sustainable economic model. Tasmania’s small population is an asset not a liability. Having more people will not make it a better place to live, quite the opposite.
Not critical issues
AIRBNB is blamed for being part of the cause of rental shortage, with examples of houses in Sandy Bay being sold to overseas and interstate investors (Letters, January 13). With the median house price in Sandy Bay in the vicinity of $800,000 it would be fair to say no one in government is likely to lose any sleep over any alleged rental shortage in Sandy Bay brought about supposedly by Airbnb. One can sympathise about unmown lawns or weeds in Sandy Bay gardens but they are hardly critical health or safety issues.