What does Australia's first National Climate Risk Assessment mean for regional tourism?
It’s a wake-up call to get busy.
What does the report reveal?
Regional and remote communities, and communities reliant on tourism and agritourism, are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
Many visitors would rather not visit destinations dried out by drought, or disrupted by a cyclone, bushfire or flood (to name a few of the types of disasters that climate change is making more common and more intense). For example, international bookings reduced by 10-20% due to Black Summer, costing tourism businesses around $4.5 billion.
A snapshot of a few of the impacts of climate change on the tourism industry. Source: Climate Council
What can we do?
We need to act quickly to prevent the worst of predicted impacts.
Understanding risks presents an opportunity to take informed action to reduce impacts – and there is plenty businesses can do today to safeguard operations into the future.
Adaptation is critically important, which means adapting infrastructure and the way things are done to be more resilient to extreme weather events. Australia is currently experiencing extreme weather events simultaneously and within quick succession, and this is going to become more common. Where each type of extreme weather event takes place, when, and how severe they tend to be is changing. This means historical patterns for your region are not likely to be a good indicator of future risk.
However, prevention is always more effective than response. We all have a part to play in reducing emissions – after all, tourism accounts for around 8% of global emissions – and in long-haul destinations far from the rest of the world, and where per person emissions are amongst the highest in the world (as in Australia) – our share of the industry’s emissions are much higher.
There are clear and practical resources to help tourism businesses reduce their emissions – which often reduce bills as well.
Reducing emissions
The key way to reduce emission is to reduce use of fossil fuels – in electricity and as fuel for vehicles and planes.
Adding solar power is a cost saving way to reduce bills.
High energy users are heating and air-conditioning rooms, and heating water, such as for showers – choosing energy-efficient electric appliances powered by renewable energy is a great place to start.
Ways to reduce transport emissions include using EVs (electric vehicles) charged by renewable electricity, choosing public transport such as buses, coaches and trains, and choosing active transport such as cycling and walking - and encouraging and enabling guests to.
Learn easy-to-apply ways your tourism business can reduce its emissions.
Adaptation
Use the Don’t Risk It manual developed by EarthCheck to identify and plan how to mitigate potential risks, including natural disasters, health and safety hazards, and socio-political challenges that could impact operations, reputation, or revenue. The guide provides step-by-step strategies for prevention, preparedness, response, and recovery, and encourages regular review to stay ahead of emerging risks.
Use business continuity planning to help your business respond to unexpected events and situations which can interrupt operations.
Independent third-party certification, sustainable procurement, and lifecycle thinking are not "nice-to-haves", they are critical tools to build a resilient tourism industry, future-proof businesses and local economies, and protect regional communities.
What can destination managers do?
A great support for destination managers is Ecotourism Australia’s ECO Destination accreditation. The process, which is supported by a sustainability expert, will take you on the journey to supporting reduced emissions and improved resilience across the tourism industry in your region.
If you would like support to learn how you can enable your local industry to reduce emissions and become more sustainable in other ways as well, please reach out to us at Tilma Group – we have a program designed specifically for this.
Advocacy
We also have an opportunity to proactively engage to shape the way governments fund resilience strategies and investment, emergency response, land use and regulatory change, insurance, social support, and everything else needed for a climate-change-resilient tourism industry.
Over to you
There’s so much work to do.
Read the National Climate Risk Assessment report - it provides a comprehensive, evidence-based understanding of climate-change-related risks for the tourism industry—now and into the future.
Unpack it and share it - and let’s do the work!
Join us
We donate 1% of Tilma’s profits to help regional communities prepare for and recover from climate-change-fueled extreme weather events via the Foundation for Regional & Rural Renewal (FRRR).