Don’t be turned off tourists before you visit towns that benefit

CHARLES Wooley’s provocative contribution cannot pass without comment (“The Second Great Invasion of Tassie is under way — only this time it’s with campervans,” TasWeekend, June 8-9).

First, let me say how much we respect Charlie as one of Tasmania’s favourite sons and a giant of Australian journalism. Indeed, he has been our first choice to host our most important tourism industry events over the years, including the Australian Tourism Awards in Hobart. He was once upon a time a champion for tourism’s contribution to this state.

Charlie’s globetrotting career has privileged him with a unique world-view that most of us can only dream about.

But in declaring Tasmania is on its way to becoming a destination where “locals have grown to hate the tourists”, I can only urge Charlie to look a little closer to home, just beyond the Salamanca strip, and speak to some of the thousands upon thousands of Tasmanians who are shaping a future for themselves and their families off the back of Tasmania’s growing visitor economy.

He could start by heading up to Sheffield, Scottsdale, Deloraine or St Helens, and visiting the vibrant townships transformed off the back of visitation and the businesses and investment that have sprung up in those communities. When forestry collapsed, who in their wildest dreams could have imagined within a decade a boutique craft brewery, of all things, would one day soon be thriving in Scottsdale? (The beer is sensational by the way).

Or that sleepy Sheffield would have no less than a half dozen evening dining options, including the best Chinese restaurant and homemade fudge producer in regional Australia (take my word for it, or better yet, go and visit and verify this claim yourself).

Charlie should also speak to the tradies earning seriously good coin on any one of the half-dozen major hotels springing up in Hobart, Launceston and Devonport, or the hundreds of people who will soon fill the long-term jobs each of these developments will create when they open their doors.

He could speak to the countless expat Tasmanians who have returned to forge a career in tourism, not just because it provides them with a career pathway in Tasmania but also because by any measure, our local tourism industry is genuinely regarded as world-class.

Or in glossing the perspectives of our industry legends like Simon Currant, Charlie should also reach out to the new generation of entrepreneurs who have taken the plunge to forge their own tourism businesses with aspirations to build upon Simon’s extraordinary legacy.

I am confident that if Charlie did speak to any of these people, he would not find much hatred for tourism.

Indeed, when EMRS polled Tasmanians last year about their attitudes to different industry sectors, 59 per cent named tourism as the industry that had made the greatest contribution to the state over the past five years.

Yes, we are facing some complex challenges managing visitor growth. No one is denying the concerns many Tasmanians have about how tourism is being managed in some of our most beloved

sites. But we do need to keep some perspective and put aside the hyperbole around over-tourism.

Visitation over the past three years has been bubbling along at 2 to 4 per cent per annum. This is within a longterm average growth trend that is on the lower scale of growth compared to many comparable destinations across Australia and our region. Indeed, growth out of our domestic visitor markets, which represent four out of five visitors to Tasmania, has plateaued over the past 12 months. Comparing Tasmania, with our 1.3 million annual visitors, to Venice and their 30 million annual visitors, is like comparing traffic congestion on the Southern Outlet to Beijing and Los Angeles. It’s nonsensical.

What we must do as a destination is learn from far more comparable examples in similarly exceptional natural environments and small communities like New Zealand’s South Island, Alaska, Iceland and even the Galapagos.

The lesson is to carefully grow our priority market segments, value our outstanding experiences, and invest heavily in visitor infrastructure, especially in our natural areas to sustainably manage visitor numbers. We also need to invest in our people to enable more of us to participate in our visitor economy.

These are priorities at the heart of our industry growth strategy, T21, and exactly where the public funding has been prioritised from the recent state and federal elections.

In 2002 then-premier Jim Bacon challenged Tasmanians “to avoid the spectre of being paupers in paradise”.

This is a constant work in progress, and I do not for a minute think tourism is the silver bullet for our inherent economic and social disadvantages. Far from it.

But it is one economic driver that has grown and emerged as a competitive advantage for our state, that effectively disperses wealth across our regions and communities. Tourism works for Tasmania.

We are smart, connected and innovative enough as Tasmanians to manage the opportunities and challenges a growing and prospering tourism industry presents with confidence and action. Not fear.