The NSW South Coast is being loved to death, like Amsterdam, Rome, Barcelona, Santorini, Bali, Dubrovnik, Kyoto, Byron Bay and more.
Kiama has a resident town population of 12,000 people, yet between 1.2-1.4 million visitors pack into the town in holiday season. For every screensaver-perfect stretch of beach, there’s one strewn with discarded plastics and food wrappers. Tourism on the south coast is devouring the very diversity it professes to covet.
This tsunami of holiday-makers overwhelms neighbourhoods, pushes up the prices of houses and apartments, as well as rents and food. It forces poorer residents out. Many are young people.
The council is exhorting people from Sydney to come on down and spend. It recently appointed DTM Tourism to lead the development of the Kiama Visitor Economy Strategy. Its website does not mention sustainable tourism or limiting pollution. It does not mention roads packed with cars or the police breaking up another alcohol and drug-fuelled AirBnB party. It doesn’t mention homelessness.
Its strategy can be summed up in three words: “More, more, more”.
According to Tourism Strategy Development Services for Kiama last year, visitors stayed 1.8 million nights — up 29% from last year. The total visitor spend was $362 million, up $14 million from last year. Despite the rivers of cash generated by tourism, locals are not benefiting. Mostly they have had a gutful of out-of-town Range Rover drivers hunting pickled octopus and a park. In early October, cars trying to get into Kiama stretched seven kilometres on Highway One.
Developers have set their greedy eyes on Kiama, Minnamurra, Gerringong, Jamberoo and Gerroa to pave green farm land with bitumen and build seven figure cookie-cutter houses, many of which will be short-term rentals.
Councillors have no planning powers anymore; at best they are bleeding hearts but some are glove puppets for property developers.
The Woolworths Kiama is the second most expensive store in NSW, behind Byron Bay. The locals pay inflated tourist prices. Almost half of Kiama’s elderly (and there are plenty) live on the age pension and therefore are struggling with inflated prices.
Local media, including the Illawarra Mercury, never question tourism’s impact on the environment and the other problems. Social media platforms showcase the best the south coast has to offer crafted through the rose-tinted lens of influencers. Australian Traveller, Urban List and Homes to Love flog expensive Airbnb’s to the rich and want-to-be rich looking to capture the magic of a seaside holiday.
Do tourists know they are depriving a family of a rental? Rich Airbnb homeowners can do what they like with their properties, but any government which purports to support equity must tax these owners to the hilt.
To ameliorate the damage, the NSW government must insist that councils pull all tourist marketing and advertising, except to promote four major events a year. Council and/or the government should only approve Airbnbs with a maximum number of 90 stays per night in one year. Those who lease their second or third coastal properties as long-term rentals should receive substantial rate rebates and tax concessions. Tourists who stay more than one night should pay a fee over and above their rental to maintain beaches, parks and roads.
A house divided cannot stand. Former Labor Prime Minister Ben Chifley’s statement about striving for the “light on the hill” now refers rich multiple property owners on the south coast who can afford the power bills. This has to change now.
[Malcolm King lives in Kiama.]