Coastal tourist dollars don’t stay local

In 2024, an international report by The Travel Foundation showed that globally, around 50-80 per cent of coastal tourist dollars are 'leaked' from the destination, providing little or no local benefit.

In New South Wales, towns with a Coles and Woolworths take the lion's share of tourist dollars, followed by short term rentals owners in Sydney and Canberra with properties on the coast.

It's time to move beyond 'happy face' discussions about tourism's so-called contributions to the local economy of coastal towns and critically examine where the benefits are going.

In my home town of Kiama, one would think that with 1.3 million tourists driving $30 million a year 'into' the Kiama economy, local small business owners would be jumping for joy.

But these small business owners are at the very end of the 'trickle down' cash flow. Coles, Woolworths and city-based Airbnb owners reap up to 70 per cent of tourist expenditure.

Small businesses survive on the big sugar hit over Christmas, when visitor numbers peak. There's a smaller hit in Easter and then dribs and drabs.

Some large establishments do well over the holiday periods but for ten months of the year, small businesses are carried by locals wanting a beer, a haircut or a coffee. It's locals who keep coastal (and regional) towns going.

When one carves through the advertising spin and glossy drone snaps of pristine white beaches, retail and service business in coastal towns are battling.

When consumer spending flatlines - like it has for the last 18 months (some would say since the GFC) - small business profits in these towns plummet.

Retailers are also paying exorbitant commercial rents on their properties. While it varies from town to town, commercial retail rents have gone up more than 40 per cent since the end of the Covid-19 restrictions.

As the economy cools and inflation rises, as small businesses close and interest rates climb, the keen observer may notice the locals are more aloof. They're still welcoming but like the old days of surf localism (this is our beach!), tempers are quick to flare.

One reason is many of the coastal councils use rate payers monies to flog their towns and hinterlands. The glamourous online and magazine marketing campaigns don't mention roads packed with cars or the police breaking up another alcohol and drug-fuelled Airbnb party.

They also don't mention the appalling rudeness of some entitled customers (I'm looking at you Sydney), who throw a tantrum when they can't get what they want. Although to be fair, the fall of public manners is not confined to tourists.

In mid-winter one can drive around Kiama, Gerroa and Gerringong and count the number of vacant short term rental properties in total darkness, while young people move as they can't find a place to live and homelessness rises. We have young people squatting under tarpaulin near the Bombo cliffs.

As Anatole France said more than 100 years ago, "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."

Properties in the NSW and Queensland coasts are now built specifically as short term rentals and not for residential use. There is a staggering rise in the number of American-style gated communities.

Flogging the NSW coast as an endless resource is highly problematic. Developers, like greedy bloodhounds, scent fast bucks. The commodification of NSW's beachside towns is music to their ears.

They rip up greenfield land and knock down properties (many are rentals) to cater for predominantly rich Boomers.

In what is the most blatant case of environmental vandalism, the developer of Ingenia Lifestyle Komoko at Blueys Beach, on the NSW mid north coast, has bulldozed 60 hectares of coastal forest to build an over-55s gated community.

Airbnb's and other short term rentals have acted as parasites on the economic body politic of coastal towns for too long. The money is not invested in local infrastructure, in surf lifesaving clubs or youth community centres.

These absentee landlords are speculators on the social capital and collective spirit created by locals in good times and bad.

While tourists may not be the central cause of the rise of localism, it's a factor.

The tsunami of holidaymakers overwhelm neighbourhoods, push up the prices of houses and apartments, as well as rents and food.

I want tourists to have a good time but it's blatantly clear thatbenefit-sharing must be a key part of tourist management to maintain public support.