DESTINATION MANAGEMENT PLANS FROM A CONSULTANT S PERSPECTIVE - Jenny Rand from Jenny Rand & Associates

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Jared Morrison
5 years ago
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1 DESTINATION MANAGEMENT PLANS FROM A CONSULTANT S PERSPECTIVE - Jenny Rand from Jenny Rand & Associates Cover Slide I have been asked to address a number of questions on Destination Management Plans from a consultant s perspective, working with Local Councils to prepare Tourism / DMPs. Slide 1 DMPs are not new. Local and regional tourism plans were first introduced by the Tourism Commission of NSW in the 1980s, with the Commission producing a manual to guide the preparation of these Plans. Very few Councils proceeded to prepare plans as there was no statutory requirement to do so, nor any funds to implement the recommendations. During the 1990 s and up to 2011 there was an adhoc approach to tourism planning, with Tourism NSW requiring RTOs to prepare Tourism Plans as part of their funding. During this period, the Department of State & Regional Development also provided some funds for Councils, Tourism Organisations and Local communities to prepare Tourism Plans. DSRD also published guidelines and a planning framework as part of a community self help manual. In 2008, the Standard Template for Local Environmental Plans was introduced by Planning NSW. To support this, the Department also released a Practice Note outlining the process for tourism planning. This was followed in 2010 by the NSW Tourism and Local Government Taskforce releasing the Tourism Planning Manual for Local Councils. This Manual was the forerunner for Destination Management Plans. As a result of past initiative to tourism planning, there are now a range of tourism plans in place throughout NSW, with these plans being of varying content and standard. Only some of these plans are likely to meet the requirements of a DMP. In contrast to the last 30 years of planning, there is now a focus on Destination Management, with DMPs having the support of State and Federal Governments and also be tied to a range of funding programs. There is now an incentive to prepare and implement the plans. Slide 2 Does Council have to be involved in planning for Tourism? Under the Provisions of the Local Government Act, Councils can chose whether to not to become involved in tourism with tourism classed as a non core service or function of Council. Throughout NSW the level of involvement from Councils has ranged from Councils taking a leadership role and employing tourism staff and operating the VICs, through to Council-industry partnerships, solely providing funding to tourism organisations. and to no involvement what so ever. This presents two challenges for DM Planning: Firstly, there is no statutory requirement for Councils to be involved in tourism or to prepare, adopt and implement DMPs.

2 Secondly, there is the question of who has responsibility for preparing and implementing the DMP, particularly in LGAs where there is no structure or tourism resources in place. Slide 3. Is preparing a DMP a statutory requirement of Council? The statutory planning requirements for Local Government include: - Integrated strategic Planning and the raft of plans and documents that need to accompany this - Local Environmental Plans and associate policies and plans - Plans of management for Council owned land and facilities The third challenge for DMPS is how to integrate DMPs into the statutory planning framework. Integrated Strategic Planning was introduced in 2010 with all Councils required to have their plans in place by The Planning horizon includes a 10 year Community Strategic Plan and Resourcing Strategy, a 4 year Delivery program which is tied to Council elections and a one year operational plan which is tied to the delivery program. The Community Strategic Plan is reviewed by Outgoing Councils and can be modified by incoming councils. The incoming council also sets the Delivery program. Community Strategic Plans can be changed, however significant changes require public consultation. Slide 4 What are the challenges of incorporating a DMP into the Integrated Strategic Planning Framework? From a consultant s perspective, working within the Integrated Strategic Planning framework has been challenging. Tourism barely gets a mention in most CPS, Resourcing documents and delivery plans. Very few plans include provisions for preparing a tourism plan or implementing the recommendations of the tourism plan. Tourism cuts across most sections of Council roads, signage, parks and recreation, cultural facilities etc. The tourism manager generally sits out to the side and is not involved in asset and facility planning. In addition most of the capital works projects identified in CSP and delivery programs are focused on meeting resident needs with minimal or no consideration of their implications or potential for tourism What I am hearing from Councils is this is a Great Plan, but can t be implemented because it s outside the Community Strategic Plan and Delivery Program all funds are already committed. While CSPs can be changed, at this stage with the newness of the Plans, there is limited or no will to do this. The ISP has been an incredibly challenging process for councils, involving alot of time and resources. GMs have finally got the Councillors to sign off and do not want to rock the boat. Where the Tourism Plan is prepared by a Tourism organisation independent of Council it is even more difficult to achieve Council buy in.

3 Slides 5, 6 and 7 The next three slides are an example from Shellharbour City of how we have had to retrofit a DMP into a CSP and Delivery Program. Shellharbour, is the easiest Tourism Plan that I have had retrofit. Luckily, the CSP included a as one of its actions, to assist Tourism Shellharbour to develop, implement and review the Shellharbour Strategic Tourism Plan. This is the only CSP that I have worked with so far that has had this provision. Having said this, we still needed to demonstrate which sections of the CSP and Delivery program were relevant to the recommendations of the Tourism Plan. In the Tourism Action Plan itself, we also need to relate each action to the relevant strategies and actions contained within Council s Delivery Program. Slide 8 Challenges of working within the Statutory Planning Framework Integrating DMPs into the statutory town planning process is also a challenge. The standard template for Local Environmental Plans (LEPs) was introduced in 2008 and most Council s now have either a new Local Environmental Plan in place or a draft Plan that is about to be gazetted. Putting the LEPs in place has been an expensive and time consuming process, and for many council s a political nightmare. Now that they are in place, there is a very strong resistance to making changes. Under the standard template, the lack of flexibility in the definitions and the landuse zones is a significant issue for tourism. Tourism proposals often come out of left field and don t meet the standard requirements. For example, the logical place to develop a motor sports or mountain bike park with attached accommodation is in rural areas, however there are no provisions for this type of development under the standard template they definitely don t meet the requirements for eco tourist facilities which are permissible in most rural zones. Even where changes to the template have been included in draft plans, these changes have been refused by the Department. The use of the tourist zone also poses problems for tourism planning. There is an expectation by some Council planners that the Tourism Plan will identify tourism development precincts with these defined by lines on a map. While this is possible, it is generally the exception rather than the norm. In reality there are far more factors involved in achieving a successful and sustainable tourism development than simply defining a zone. This is particularly the case for rural locations. Slide 9 Community Consultation I was asked to comment on whether you can still undertake community consultation for a DMP once a Community Strategic Plan in place. The answer is Yes there is nothing to prevent this. In practice however I am finding that it is challenging to get people to participate. We have just come off 4 years of intensive consultation for the preparation of the new LEP and all the plans and strategies that feed into this, as well as all the consultation for the preparation of the Community Strategic plan and associated documents. I am finding that the public is confused I am being asked -why are you talking to us again we ve already told Council. The public is also very frustrated complaining about - Council is all talk and no actions there s lots of reports already done start implementing them, just get on with it.

4 I also find that most people in the community have limited understanding of tourism and what will or won t work. They tend to be fixated on roads, signage, toilets and local museums. There is also a very strong expectation that Council should do it and very limited awareness of Council s roles and responsibilities or resources, nor is there an understanding of what they as individuals or communities can do. Public consultation is both time consuming and expensive to undertake often with very little return. In practice I have generally found it far more effective to consult directly with industry, operators, tourism and business groups. Slide 10 Can you use an existing tourism plan as the basis for a DMP? The ability to use an existing tourism plan as the basis for preparing a DMP will depend on the content of the Plan. Some existing plans are very comprehensive, while others are nothing more than a wish list. Very few plans prepared for local areas consider broader local, regional and state priorities and how the local Plan fits with these. The first step is to evaluate the current plan to determine if it up-to date, comprehensive and meets the DMP requirements. Some plans may need a cover change and some updating, while others will need a complete re-write. Going back to points made earlier the challenge will be to get commitment by Councils to fund, prepare, adopt and implement DMPS. Slide 11 What are the challenges of preparing a DMP at Regional Level? Preparing Destination Management Plans at a Regional level presents a completely different set of challenges - Is the planning going to be top down with the RTO setting the priorities or is it going to be bottom up, with Council setting the priorities for their own area. - Logistically who is going to have carriage of the Plan, how is it going to be implemented, - How do we get sign off and commitment from all councils recognising that not all Councils have the desire and/or resources to be involved. - Council s also have different priorities with tourism often being very low on the list. - It is also a challenge for Council s to operate across LGA boundaries. Allied with this, in preparing tourism plans most localities have focused on their individual strengths and their points of difference from other LGA s. Reconciling this is challenging. For example in the South Coast Region there are only 6 LGAs however there are more differences in direction and focus in product development and positioning than there are synergies. For the larger regions such Inland, DMP will be extremely difficult to undertake at the regional level. Slide 12 How long does it take to prepare a DMP? The time involved in the preparation of DMP will be determined by the quality of the information available, the size and complexity of the area and the level of consultation required. It will also be influenced by the budget available and other factors such as the availability of stakeholders in peak and off-peak periods.

5 Realistically, it will take around 6 months to prepare an DMP from scratch for an LGA. For regional plans, it will depend on what plans are already in place, whether the DMP is to be an umbrella document or if it has to start at the beginning. A minimum of 4 months is needed for an umbrella document with local plans already in place, but it could take up to 2 years. Slide 13 There is no question that DM planning needs to occur. It should be a priority. However before embarking on the process I believe that far more consideration needs to be given to the logistics of preparing the plans, their timing in relation to the CSPs and LEPs and how they are to be incorporated into these documents. Consideration also needs to be given to who is going to fund the preparation of the Plan and the implementation of the recommendations. Just summing up, the key challenges that DMPs are likely to face at the Council level include: - Gaining council commitment to fund, adopt and implement the plans - Incorporating the plans into the Statutory planning processes - Obtaining meaningful and useful input from public consultation particularly given the timing for the preparation of the Plans. - Ensuring that the approaches taken recognise the assets and resources available and the different stages that localities are at in developing tourism - And defining who has responsibility for the carriage of the DMP and how this relates to the mainstream functions of Council. - Should it be a top down or bottom up approach.

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