Paul Kelly, CEO of Ireland’s national tourism development authority, spoke in Queenstown at the Otago Tourism Policy School last week.
Speaking to Mountain Scene, he says it’s got to be growth that’s "managed in the context of, does it work for the visitor, does it work for the community, does it work for the industry, does it work for the environment?"
"If all we’re interested in here is the industry and the economic return out of tourism and maximising that, that’s not a sustainable strategy for the long term.
"You end up in a scenario where, if you damage your reputation, it takes you a long time to recover, and you can damage your value-for-money reputation.
"If you lose community licence, you will have a place where visitors won’t feel welcome."
Speaking of reputation, Kelly — who was last year awarded the Global Tourism Ambassador from Destinations International, celebrating those who’ve transformed their destinations — has made his name, through Failte Ireland, for driving visitor dispersal to take the heat out of tourism hotspots.
"We’ve had some visitor management issues in places like the Cliffs of Moher so we’re developing and investing in other Atlantic cliff locations."
In the local context, "I think it is about where are the other areas that can grow, that can take visitors out of Queenstown and into other areas nearby, and those can be developed over time".
At the same time, Kelly says any destination around the world "would dearly love to have the problems Queenstown has because you’re popular".
"So much about the tourism economy is what makes Queenstown a great place to live — it’s given us all huge amenity, huge employment, clearly.
"People in the tourism industry talk about communication and marketing to visitors, but it’s [also] about communication back to the host community and it’s got to be two-way and it’s got to be how can you minimise the negatives of tourism?"
Kelly notes Ireland doesn’t have visitor levies, and, pointing out 29 cents in every euro spent goes to the government, says "there’s only so much money you can take out of visitors".
"There’s lots of areas where they’ve had visitor levies or bed tax for a while, and because what they’ve done is they’ve used that to invest in marketing for the destination, they’ve actually exacerbated the problem of over-tourism in that areas."
He applauds Destination Queenstown’s carbon-zero mission for the local tourism industry by 2030.
"We’re doing lots of work with industry as well to try and reduce carbon emissions and also enhance biodiversity and protect the natural environment."
