Project Forever Waiheke E-News

2023 has seen some really major challenges thrown at the Waiheke community – floods, serious stormwater problems, continuing ferry mismanagement, and ferry fare increases in particular. The response of the community – neighbours, community groups, the Local Board, and our fantastic social, health and emergency services – has been nothing short of heroic. Those of us who’ve lived on the island for decades know that that response is no accident – it’s built on the Waiheke spirit of connection, support for neighbours and others, and a profound ethos of kaitiakitanga and care for the island itself.

Despite tourism industry concerns in 2022, tourism ‘recovery’ post-COVID has been robust on Waiheke. In 2022, the NZ media were describing a ‘crisis in hospitality’, as tourism operators across the country anticipated low visitor rates in autumn, due in part to the slow pace at which the world was beginning to emerge from the severe limits on international travel. Against those expectations, Waiheke tourism businesses were celebrating a busy early summer 2022-2023 as Aucklanders and NZers from elsewhere flocked to Waiheke, and other favourite summer destinations in NZ, rather than risk going overseas. Waiheke’s tourism sector group – Waiheke Island Tourism Inc (WITI) – reported very high accommodation occupancy rates for large scale accommodation providers in December-January, exceeding rates in the previous summer by large margin; occupancy rates for holiday homes were similar to the previous summer. WITI also continues to champion tourism opportunities for local operators through lobbying and information support for its members.

However, it is dismaying to see that Auckland Council has still done nothing, after years of consistent campaigning and requests by the Waiheke community, Local Board, and our local MPs and Councillors, to address the chronic problems related to overtourism on the island – unmanaged ferry queues, virtually no affordable rental housing for long-term residents, and no regulation of summer water supply. This past summer once again saw not only ferry queues and mismanagement were than pre-COVID, but also road and parking congestion, and increased noise pollution, in particular from the increase in helipad licences, despite the persistent work of local group Quiet Sky to have reasonable limits placed on licences and trip permits.

The passenger ferry service

A major problem for both tourism operators and residents alike has been the chronic failure of the passenger ferry service. Despite a soggy summer 2022-2023, tourist interest in Waiheke remained huge, with full ferries on both weekdays and weekends – causing often massive ferry queues onto Quay Street and very long waits as visitor demand way exceeded even the scheduled ferry capacity. As the summer progressed, ferry delays and short notice cancellation of sailings turned into often multiple daily cancellations, affecting the entire tourism sector on Waiheke. Long-term Waiheke-based tourism operators, including many small businesses struggling to survive through the pandemic, were disrupted by the unreliability of the service, resulting in both operators and visitors being unable to plan trips with any certainty.

 The impacts have been equally disruptive for island residents. In January 2023, the Gulf News reported that in December 2022 “ferry passenger numbers hit the highest levels since the pandemic began”, while simultaneously “the Waiheke community’s frustration with Fullers’ ferry service was reaching boiling point, after another week of delays, cancellations and long lines snaking through the Matiatia Wharf terminal”. In February-March 2023, more than 10% of Fullers Waiheke sailings were estimated cancelled, including peak commuter trips. Waiheke residents became outraged as Fullers reneged on its pre-summer commitment to have Residents Lanes operating on all sailings from Auckland after 9.00 am, resulting in large numbers of residents being left to wait up to 2 hours for another sailing home. Even when those lanes were in operation, large numbers of residents were often left on the city wharf because tourists were boarded concurrently. A quote in a December 2022 issue of the Gulf News from one resident reflected the outraged helplessness of Waiheke commuters: “I dare not leave the queue for fear of being left behind when the next boat reaches capacity. I have been left behind before. As I stand in the cold for another hour and a half, this feels more like a third world service”.

 Some persistent locals continued to make complaints to Fullers, but many gave up in frustration; some people whose jobs are in Auckland even decided to sell up and leave Waiheke because of the disruption to their daily lives. The recently released Waka Kotahi report provides some hope, stating a “strong case” for returning the Waiheke ferry service to government regulation; although Fullers is strenuously fighting that move, Auckland Transport’s new Regional Public Transport Plan finally proposes (p 79) that AT take over the service, and it’s evident that the Waiheke community has largely lost all faith in Fullers ever providing a reliable service that prioritises residents.

‘Destination Management’ planning for NZ

Back in 2020, in the months following the announcement by the NZ government of our first COVID-19 lockdown, the Gulf News and Waiheke social media were full of items describing the delight of locals who discovered – or for long-term residents, re-discovered – the true essence of Waiheke, as road and sea traffic dropped away and wildlife returned closer to shore and in gardens, roadsides and beaches, and locals were able to enjoy our recreational spaces without having to battle huge numbers of visitors.

 In 2020, the Minister of Tourism announced a ‘reset’, to take advantage of the enforced hiatus in tourism for tourism planners, in government, communities and the tourism sector. The intention was to refocus away from gross numbers, to a kind of tourism where the so-called ‘destination’ communities themselves actually gained a benefit, and visitors were people who understood and appreciated the values of the communities they were visiting and whose limited and precious resources they were using up – not only the recreation spaces, but essential resources like secure housing, water, and even health services.

Finally, a Draft Waiheke Destination Management Plan??

In its May 2023 meeting agenda, the Local Board released a draft of the ‘Destination Management Plan’ submitted to the Board (p 201). The Local Board will be making it available later this year for community feedback – keep your eye on the Project Forever Waiheke Facebook page for notice about when it is available for your input.

What’s in the Draft Waiheke DMP?

The draft DMP for Great Barrier Island (GBI), which was presented to key stakeholder organisations on Great Barrier late last year, and was found to lack any significant focus on sustainable and eco tourism, which had been a major theme in the Great Barrier community consultation, and that community’s clear preference.

On first glance, the draft DMP for Waiheke suffers from the same problems, as a solely economic strategy that pays only lip service to environmental and community resilience. In an early review of the draft, it’s apparent that the focus remains almost exclusively on ‘growing’ tourism, rather than on managing the numbers of visitors coming to the island. While the authors – Sydney-based tourism promotion company Stafford Strategy – acknowledge in their draft report that Project Forever Waiheke’s research reports in 2018 and 2021 featured in their consultation as important, recent, valid pieces of research on residents’ views and concerns, it appears that they have used only the data from our visitor survey, and selectively ignored the detailed information that we provided from more than 400 residents about the damage caused by excessive tourist numbers, and how residents wanted tourism to be better managed. While Stafford’s report does recommend a tourism levy for Waiheke, it also states in its “long list” of recommendations, that “it is not expected that most of these can be implemented … in the next 4-5 years”. Given the very narrow focus of so-called ‘destination management’ planning, and the need identified by our Local Board to diversify away from over-reliance on tourism, it’s hard to find anything of short-medium term value in the draft Waiheke DMP.

In fact, the whole concept of ‘destination management planning’ has been criticised by the tourism sector as too narrowly focused on economic development. An article in Tourism Review journal in 2020 commented that “destinations need to be considered as part of a wider system, one that is inclusive of urban planning, economic inequality, transportation and housing...”, so that planning takes into account “wellbeing and quality of life indicators to identify the real benefits of tourism” to communities, not only to tourists.

 So keep your eye on PFW’s website – for people who don’t have time to read the whole 50-page Draft Plan, we will be publishing a detailed summary of the draft Plan in early September, to formulate your own feedback to the Local Board and Auckland Council.

How is overtourism being managed in overseas ‘hot spots’??

Around the globe, for more than a decade, local governments have been putting into place regulation and policy, to support over-touristed locations to rebuild their communities. A wide range of measures are being used, the majority of them focused ultimately on reducing tourist numbers overall, and in vulnerable areas, to avoid congestion and damage to both social and natural environments. The Tasmanian government is proposing a moratorium on cruise ships carrying more than 5,000 passengers; Marseilles has placed tough restrictions on numbers allowed onto its beaches each day, through an online permit system, to protect the natural environment; and both Venice and Barcelona have introduced visitor levies and other restrictions on day trippers. Recently three Australian cities, and now Christchurch city and rural zones, have introduced major rates increases on whole homes that are rented only for short-stay accommodation, to make available more homes for residents renting long-term.

What has Project Forever Waiheke been doing about these various issues?

Over the past two years, the PFW team has followed up on our 2021 research, by bringing overtourism management solutions to the awareness of the Local Board and Council. Throughout 2022 and this year, PFW has submitted ‘deputations’ to the Waiheke Local Board, requesting the the Local Board and Councillor Mike Lee advocate to Auckland Council to implement regulation to protect Waiheke from a repeat of overwhelming tourist numbers and their harmful impacts on our community. The first submission focused on the serious limitations of the consultation with the Waiheke community in gathering views and concerns for a destination management plan for our island. In response, the Local Board reiterated that the draft DMP will be distributed in full to the Waiheke community at large, with genuine opportunities for residents and Waiheke community groups to provide input on the draft.

 PFW also presented a proposal to the Local Board for locally controlled development of a holistic economic development plan for Waiheke, rather than focusing economic development only on tourism. That proposal highlighted the acknowledged issues with over-reliance on tourism, and the need identified in PFW’s 2021 research for Waiheke economic development to focus on diversifying away from tourism and its low-wage economy. Expanding on that issue, PFW recently published a ‘Commentary’ article in New Zealand Geographer, entitled “Plucking the golden goose, alive”. That article focuses on the example of overtourism impacts on Waiheke Island, and how those impacts on the local community and environment have been exacerbated by Auckland Council governance. It describes how small islands that are popular tourist destinations are vulnerable to bad governance decisions by metropolitan local governments that don’t understand the needs and preferences of small island communities. In particular, it shows how poor governance can damage not only the natural environment that makes such islands tourist attractions in the first place, but also how the resulting overtourism erodes the ability of the local community to be the essential kaitiaki of the environment. The article highlights some co-governance models overseas, and some great localised governance models for tourism management in NZ – such as in the Chatham Islands, where tourism planning is strongly focused on protecting the local community. Waiheke’s representative on Council, Mike Lee, commented at a recent public meeting on the fiscal inequities in Waiheke’s share in Council’s spending compared with every other ward, and the failure of Auckland-focused governance to meet or even understand the unique needs of Waiheke’s topography and infrastructure.

 Most recently, PFW presented a submission to the Local Board requesting that formal regulation be implemented by Council to prioritise essential water supply to Waiheke households, before deliveries to tourism operators that do not provide overnight accommodation. That submission highlights the legal obligations of Council, under a cluster of United Nations declarations to which NZ is a signatory, to implement regulation where needed to ensure a continuous basic domestic water supply. Given the evidence of huge numbers of day visitors returning to Waiheke over the recent summer, it’s evident that formal regulation is now essential, to avoid a repeat of the water queues that island residents were subjected to pre-COVID.

 PFW has also submitted to the Local Board and Auckland Council to follow the moves by local governments elsewhere to levy higher rates on whole homes available only for short-stay accommodation, to free up accommodation for long-term island residents. Many long-term Waihekeans have been forced now to leave the island; in addition to losing good friends, each loss also results in a greater burden on the remaining permanent population to pick up the tasks of caring for both the natural environment and the community.

 Project Forever Waiheke also has a chapter being published shortly in a book on ‘Justice in Tourism Destinations’, which profiles Waiheke as a case study for how poorly conceived metropolitan governance exacerbates the harm from overtourism on small islands.

 In addition, our 2020 research on the Waiheke community’s cohesive response to the COVID pandemic was published in the New Zealand Geographer in 2021, where we profiled how community spirit and cohesiveness of Waiheke was a key factor in the island remaining COVID-free for so long, avoiding the worst of the early high infection and hospitalisation rates.

 Finally, a bouquet to the Gulf News, whose persistent and in-depth coverage of these various issues for our island has been exemplary.