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- Title
MISPERCEPTIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE DAMAGE COASTAL TOURISM: CASE STUDY OF BYRON BAY, AUSTRALIA.
- Authors
BUCKLEY, RALF
- Abstract
Local politics at Byron Bay on Australia's east coast have led to misunderstanding and misrepresentation of the likely effects of climate change on sea-level and coastal erosion. A voting bloc of self-proclaimed "green" members of the local government authority (LGA) has adopted policies and planning instruments that have affected tourism by: placing severe and irrational restrictions on development of residential and holiday accommodation; reducing the opportunities for holiday letting; increasing rates and costs for businesses that provide services to tourists; and creating community division and dissent, which drives away higher yield family tourists. This is occurring even though the LGA acknowledges the town's dependence on tourism. The key issue is that the LGA has prevented beachfront landowners from protecting their own properties against erosion, which the LGA now claims, incorrectly, to be due to climate change but which is in fact caused by a groyne built to protect facilities owned or managed by the LGA itself. Addressing this erosion is completely straightforward from a technical perspective, but is prevented by political power plays. Through this political mechanism, misperceptions of climate change have hence damaged the town's tourism industry and investment, which have moved to neighboring local government areas.
- Subjects
NEW South Wales; BYRON Bay (N.S.W.); AUSTRALIA; TRAVELERS; ENVIRONMENTAL degradation; CLIMATE change &; society; TRAVEL &; the environment; TOURIST attitudes; ANTHROPOGENIC effects on nature
- Publication
Tourism Review International, 2008, Vol 12, Issue 1, p71
- ISSN
1544-2721
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3727/154427208785899957