PFW E-News: July 2024
/PFW E-News July 2024 - What now for tourism on Waiheke, ‘post-Covid’? Residents’ views in 2024
In January 2024, the Waiheke Local Board entered into a collaboration with Project Forever Waiheke (PFW) to explore Waiheke residents’ current views on tourism on the island, through a ‘refresh’ of PFW’s 2021 resident survey. A new survey was undertaken with Waiheke residents to assess their experiences and perceptions of the impacts of Waiheke tourism on the island’s community and natural environments over the previous 12 months, including both positive and negative impacts. You can read a summary of the research findings here, or the full report, which includes a LOT of verbatim comments from a broad diversity of Waiheke residents.
More than 400 Waiheke residents completed the survey, including 109 people (27%) owning and/or working in tourism services on Waiheke, and 297 who were not engaged in tourism. The responses of residents who took part were analysed in terms of whether they were or were not engaged in providing tourism services on Waiheke. [Note that, for validity purposes, the survey data were co-analysed by the research team and two experienced independent researchers who had no family or business connections to Waiheke: Michele Lennan, and Robyn Moore (The Research Collective).]
What did the research reveal about tourism impacts on the Waiheke community and environment in 2023-2024?
It was disappointing, and frustrating, to the PFW research team to find that the 2024 survey findings largely reflect the patterns seen in our 2018 and 2021 research with Waiheke residents – but with even less benefit apparent from tourism on Waiheke to the people who live here, and reports by residents of greater damage from tourism-related factors than experienced even pre-pandemic. In addition, many residents were now experiencing emotional distress from the impacts of continuing and unmanaged overtourism, and frustrated at the failure of Auckland Council to take action to prevent the ongoing damage from tourism, especially when councils elsewhere in NZ – and all across the globe – have been implementing regulations that mitigate the worst impacts, such as housing crises, water shortages, and disrupted community access to essential services.
You can read the full report here, or the summary report here.
In brief, the data showed the following key patterns:
Benefits of Waiheke tourism – The economic benefits of tourism on Waiheke accrued almost exclusively to people who worked in tourism; an ‘improved standard of living due to tourism opportunities’ was reported by only 9% of residents not working in tourism; lifestyle benefits such as recreation opportunities from tourism were experienced by fewer than half of residents, and nearly twice as often by people working in tourism as those who were not; and nearly half of residents not working in tourism (47%) identified zero benefit to them at all – economic or lifestyle – from tourism on Waiheke.
Negative impacts of tourism on the island community – Harm to the Waiheke community from factors related to tourism had: caused serious disruption to residents’ access to amenities essential to everyday living and wellbeing; caused many residents emotional distress; had resulted in erosion of community capacity and cohesion; and were experienced disproportionately more often by people not working in tourism on Waiheke.
Negative impacts of tourism on the island’s natural environments – Damage identified to the island’s natural environments from factors related to tourism: included damage to marine and sky environments and wildlife as well as to native forests and animals; commonly also caused disruption or distress to residents’ and their families’ everyday lives; were identified as resulting demonstrably from tourism activities; and were experienced or observed disproportionately less often by island residents working in tourism.
Two disparate resident experiences of tourism on Waiheke - The findings revealed two quite disparate experiences of tourism on Waiheke, and two different perceptions of tourism’s value to the island – that of Waiheke tourism providers, and that of the majority of Waiheke residents, who have no economic investment in tourism. The patterns evident were:
Residents working in tourism (tourism sector personnel) were almost the only residents reporting a personal or household economic benefit from tourism, and were also consistently much more likely than other residents to identify lifestyle benefits for them from tourism on the island; in contrast, people not working in tourism experienced fewer lifestyle benefits and almost no economic benefit from tourism on Waiheke.
Tourism sector personnel were consistently significantly less likely than all other residents to perceive the harmful impacts of tourism that other residents identified commonly.
Tourism sector personnel were also much more likely to want either unlimited tourist numbers or more tourism than at present, and commonly believed that the island’s economic wellbeing relies largely or even entirely on tourism.
The view that tourism was necessary, or an advantage, was not shared by other residents (p 48-50), nor supported by Auckland Council’s 2022 economic analysis.
Residents not engaged in tourism services were in general accepting of tourism on Waiheke in principle, but wanted urgent regulation to limit tourist numbers; tourism sector personnel were more likely to see the solution to overtourism as improvements to island infrastructure to allow for more tourism.
Need for urgent regulation and enforcement action to mitigate overtourism impacts
The Auckland Council website (June 2024) profiles Waiheke as follows:
The island's residents are united in their love of the island's environments. In the summer, the population on many of the islands swells due to visitors and tourists seeking to make use of the open space, sandy beaches and boutique vineyards. More than 900,000 visitors visit Waiheke island [sic] each year.
Those visitor numbers, relative to Waiheke’s estimated permanent population of 9,700 (Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, 2022) make it among the most overtouristed locations internationally, based on the United Nations World Tourism Organisation’s (UNWTO) 2016 statistics (Kim, 2017) and the UNWTO definition of overtourism as "the impact of tourism on a destination, or parts thereof, that excessively influences perceived quality of life of citizens and/or quality of visitor experiences in a negative way”; that is, where tourism levels exceed “the maximum number of people that may visit a tourist destination at the same time, without causing destruction of the physical, economic, and sociocultural environment” of the location…”.
Despite some apparent differences between residents engaged in tourism and those who were not, there was a clear consensus across survey respondents that regulation by Auckland Council was needed urgently for a range of protections, as an essential if not total solution to the impacts of overtourism.
Across sectors, residents taking part in this research appeared to agree on eight areas of tourism management where regulation was now needed urgently in order to manage the impacts of tourism on Waiheke’s vulnerable local community and natural environments, and to avoid irreversible damage from overtourism. Priority areas were focused on protecting the island’s unique and fragile character, both community and natural environments, and prioritising the residents’ rights of access to essential services and amenities. Specific regulation was sought for the following priorities:
Environmental protections, in particular controls on visitors’ dogs and vehicles, fireworks, litter and pollution, and visitor access to ecologically fragile environments (p 53-56 of the full report)
Regulations to ensure priority resident access to all services and amenities essential to everyday life (p 56-57)
Limits on daily numbers of visitors, visitor vehicles, and tourism businesses (p 59-61)
Government regulation of passenger ferry services and Waiheke local bus services (p 67-69)
A ‘user-pays’ visitor tax for daytrippers and short-stay visitors, to be paid directly into Waiheke Local Board funds (p 61-65)
Regulation to reverse the current over-supply of short-stay accommodation (p 66-67)
Regulating for stronger controls on tourist behaviour (e.g. policing of littering, alcohol consumption, environmental vandalism, road and marine safety, and noise pollution) (p 65-66)
Education for visitors, and tourism operators, around Waiheke’s environmental and infrastructure vulnerabilities and respect for residents (p 63-65)
Planning and strategy for community economic development, including tourism (p 69-71)
Community and tourism strategy, versus ‘destination’ management planning
Waiheke residents identified an urgent need for integrated community and economic development strategy, including strategy to manage tourism for a balance of tourism demand with residents’ real needs. Residents were clear that such strategy needed to be led by the Waiheke community and Local Board, and not by Auckland Council, which was viewed as not understanding the unique needs of a semi-rural island community.
We must find ways to have vibrant visitor industry that is balanced with environmental protection and benefits ALL our community. Run by the Island, not Tourism Auckland.
A plan created BY WAIHEKEANS for sustainable tourism. A visitor strategy, a visitor information office, take back decision-making from Auckland.
Co-governance models for tourism management
A common theme in residents’ comments – both tourism sector personnel and others – was that Auckland Council and its various business entities had failed to undertake protective or preventive action for the wellbeing of the Waiheke social, natural and built environments – despite repeated submissions and petitions and deputations by many Waiheke residents and groups, through the Local Board, for those issues to be addressed urgently.
The commonly expressed wish now was for governance and management of aspects of the island’s development relating to tourism be devolved urgently to a community-based governance entity, with devolution of decision-making and funding to the Waiheke Local Board, as recommended in Council’s 2021 evaluation of a pilot devolving powers to selected Local Boards.
Council cannot be trusted to care for locals. They have no true connection to real locals and impose on our lives and privacy. Visitors do not give a damn, they overcrowd, litter and wander in a daydream.
Oliver et al. (2023) have proposed several co-governance models suited to the Waiheke context, based on community economic development (CED) models that are operating effectively for heavily touristed islands in other jurisdictions. Co-governance between Council and a community-based entity could be implemented successfully for Waiheke Island, utilising the extensive knowledge and expertise of residents to guide economic and community development. An effective co-governance model is working on Rekohu (Chatham Islands), whose economic development strategy states explicitly that “tourism is not primarily about economic viability, business growth and visitor experience. It is also centred on preserving our environmental, cultural and heritage assets, community wellbeing, quality of life of the Islanders and meeting a balance”, so as to ensure sustainability of both tourism and the community (Tourism Chatham Islands, 2022, p. iii).
Acknowledgements: The Project Forever Waiheke Working Group wishes to express its sincere gratitude to the following: the Waiheke Local Board, for contributing funding towards survey design and data analysis, and input into survey questions; independent researchers – Michele Lennan, and Robyn Moore (The Research Collective) – for undertaking independent analysis of the survey data; and most of all, the more than 400 Waiheke residents who contributed their time and frank views to the research survey.
