Have Australia's tourism strategies incorporated climate change?

ABSTRACT

Tourism is widely acknowledged as a key contributor to climate change, but it remains unclear how the tourism industry has been planning for climate change in practice. This paper conducts the most comprehensive critical review of Australia's tourism policy and planning documents to date. The paper explores the complex challenges posed by climate change to tourism and how tourism policy has been adapting over a 15-year period. Drawing on a longitudinal data-set of 477 Australian tourism policy and planning documents at the national, state, regional and local level, this research analyses the strategic discourse on climate change using content analysis and bibliometrics. The findings reveal opportunities, challenges and strategies for the tourism industry to contribute to the sustainable management of climate change. Opportunities include developing more “green” products, while strategies include establishing and/or participating in collaborative climate change schemes and strengthening dialogue surrounding climate change to aid the implementation of sustainable practices. Future research should consider the broader policy-making environment, such as the stakeholders, power and interest dynamics when analysing tourism strategies in relation to climate change.

KEYWORDS:

• Climate change
• strategic planning
• adaptive management
• mitigation
• policy documents

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the STCRC who provided funding for the collection of the 2000–2010 data. The authors would also like to thank the Griffith Centre for Sustainable Enterprise for providing editorial support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Char-lee J. Moyle

Char-lee Moyle (nee McLennan) is a research fellow in the Australian Centre for Entrepreneurship Research at the Queensland University of Technology. Char-lee's research is focused in three main streams: (1) regional economic development, transformation and innovation; (2) strategic policy and planning; (3) the adoption of sustainability.

Brent D. Moyle

Brent Moyle is senior research fellow at the Griffith Institute for Tourism, Griffith University, a mid-career Advance Queensland fellow with the Queensland Department of Science, Information Technology and Innovation and an adjunct fellow at Southern Cross University. Brent's research interests include sustainable tourism, sport tourism, memorable tourism experiences and the application of cutting edge technology to stimulate regional economic development.

Andreas Chai

Andreas Chai is senior lecturer at the Griffith Business School and a member of the Griffith Institute for Tourism, Griffith University. Andreas specialises in analysing household consumption behaviour from an evolutionary economic perspective and its implications for economic development, measuring poverty, structural change in the economy and climate change adaptation.

Robert Hales

Robert Hales is a lecturer with the Griffith Business School and director of Griffith Centre for Sustainable Enterprise, Griffith Business School, Griffith University. Rob specialises in sustainability and climate change policy. He has led research projects including developing the Business Case for Climate Change Adaptation for the National Climate Change Research Facility and has partnered with the Global Change Institute to deliver policy advice to the Climate Action Round Table.

Zsuzsa Banhalmi-Zakar

Zsuzsa Banhalmi-Zakar is a lecturer in Corporate Environmental Management in the College of Science and Engineering at James Cook University. She is an environmental scientist, with corporate experience in environmental management. Her work is focused on understanding how environmental issues factor into corporate decision-making, particularly in the finance sector.

Alexandra Bec

Alexandra Bec is a researcher at the Griffith Institute for Tourism, Griffith University, and a teaching academic with the School of Business and Tourism, Southern Cross University. Alexandra's research interests include resilience and change management, regional community development and tourism.