LAKES WEEKLY

Over-tourism: how do we define ‘too much’?

As we approach peak tourism this winter many are experiencing flashbacks to 2019 pre-Covid days and the commentary that pervaded through the community.

“We’re overwhelmed by visitors” ... “did you see the gridlock this week” ... “the flights are just non stop” ... “people have no regard for our values” ... “How can we limit carbon with all this growth?”

These comments reflected community sentiment that the impact of tourists was too high. Of course, perception is very personal and very subjective. But it’s a real thing and stems from how we are impacted in our day-to-day lives as residents and how we feel about it.

To address the concern that there is ‘too much’, we need to define and unpick what ‘too much’ means. Is it simply a function of numbers, or is it the type and extent of impact? Is it how it affects us as a collective community or as individuals? Does it simply relate to how we feel or is it manifested in physical form? Is it what we see impacting on our environment and where do cultural behaviours fit into this?

If we can verbalise ‘too much’, we can work to find the Goldilocks ‘sweet spot’ where the value (and how we measure that) that our community sees in our tourism sector is not outweighed by negative impacts. What does ‘ideal’ look like? We need an examination of the ‘negative’ to see if these are solely tourist dependant or a reflection of our overall growth - or even if one is, in fact, fuelling the other. We can start by capturing the impacts and agreeing what level of impact is OK and how we can measure it. How to tell if we are thriving or simply surviving.

And once we know what we want, we can work out how to get there.

Shaping our Future are holding two public workshops as the first step of enabling these conversations. We’re going to work on what is known as our ‘social carrying capacity’. We want to hear from locals what ‘too much’ and ‘great’ look like, so we can influence the work that QLDC, Destination Queenstown and Lake Wānaka Tourism will be taking forward.

The Wānaka workshop is at Lake Wānaka Centre, 23 August 6.30-8.30pm. The Queenstown workshop is at Remarkables Primary School 24 August, 6.30-8.30pm

These are timed so you can rock up after your last laps on your favourite piste, rink, or track and hopefully miss the traffic ... haha. We are providing PIZZA & REFRESHMENTS so please let us know if you plan to attend. These should be wonderful conversations to join in and we’re looking forward to hearing your voices.

John Glover - Shaping

Our Future