Benefits and risks of degrowth in remote destinations

The development of the tourism industry in the Top End over time has been driven largely by external investors who have been primarily profit-oriented and mostly had short-term ambitions and short-term associations with the destination. Large hotels and resorts have frequently changed hands, airlines have come and gone, and tour operators have changed itineraries, sometimes even omitting the destination altogether on the basis of their own financial considerations. The NT government has been complicit in this approach, investing heavily in infrastructure development particularly in the capital city of Darwin. What this approach has done, however, is to provide access for the Top End to markets and volumes of visitors that would otherwise be out of reach for a region with a small resident population and a largely under-developed economic profile. In other words, the local capacity to invest in a form of tourism that could put the Top End ‘on the map' has not historically been present. The historical approach, however, corresponded with a highly industrialised era of tourism where (particularly for international visitors) large tour groups were the norm, holidays were organised for (rather than by) tourists, and few visitors had the capacity to travel independently to more remote regions. In that era. corporate ‘winners’ in the tourism industry were selected by intermediaries, not by the tourists themselves. This placed real restrictions on how tourism could grow spatially and how new local entrants into the marketplace could be supported.

The fondamental context for tourism in places like the Top End has since changed, and those changes present the opportunity for greater local benefit from tourism. Independent travel is now the norm rather than the exception. Many tourists engage in detailed research about the destination before they travel, often

Degroivth in remote tourism destinations 109 looking specifically for activities or attractions that will distinguish their trip from those of their friends or social peers. There is a cachet associated with travel that engages local businesses and products (food, craft, cultural activities), and the more exotic and ‘authentic’ that sense of localism (as opposed to globalised and mainstream mass tourism), the more prized is its attainment. This new environment therefore offers opportunities for smaller businesses dealing with smaller volumes of visitors in ways that encourage more in-depth encounters and longer stays, in contrast to the short-term ‘tick-and-flick’ sightseeing market from the past. This version of degrowth may provide some real local benefits for remote industry and community stakeholders in places like the Top End.

The principal benefit of degrowth would be to make tourism a more realistic economic development option for the small and mostly Aboriginal communities which dominate the landscape outside of Darwin. Repeated attempts to develop a thriving Indigenous tourism sector have been unsatisfactory, often because the political ambitions have been too high and demand estimates unrealistic (Tremblay & Wegner, 2009). Indigenous operators with limited experience in tourism and limited access to markets of their own choosing have been asked to accept too many visitors with too diverse cultural backgrounds. A smaller market, where Indigenous people can have more direct contact with potential visitors and manage the pace of their business development, may be more attractive and ultimately more sustainable financially and culturally, even if this requires a more patient and long-term focus on local capacity building that may not result in immediate economic returns. While the latest Aboriginal Tourism Strategy (Tourism NT, 2019) appears to reflect some of this jargon (centred around small-scale, authentic, and in-depth encounters, self-determination, local capacity building), the focus within the NT's broader mainstream marketing and development strategies has firmly remained on previous growth-oriented models, showcasing flagship attractions and operators that are able to handle large export markets.

Of course, it is not only Aboriginal conununities and businesses which represent ‘the local’ in the Top End hinterland. Other local businesses outside of Darwin, including accommodation, hospitality, and tours, have often complained about being treated as second-class citizens when it comes to fundamentals such as government support for development, permits to access particular sites and attractions, positioning in marketing campaigns, and representation on destination marketing organisations. These businesses have seen the vast bulk of income from tourism during the good times leave the destination for the benefit of the external investors, while they have been left to bear the costs of attempting to push through more difficult times when external investors find it easy to walk away (Carson & Carson. 2017). Re-focusing Top End tourism on local businesses and local aspirations for development could help stabilise the industry and encourage more local investment. Instead of incentivising showy flagship projects in a few places, the focus needs to be more on increasing the critical mass of small operators and service providers across the region to make sure that slow and regional touring (with multiple and extended stopovers) becomes an attractive and feasible alternative to the curr ent dominant modes of short-term transit travel or exclusive resort stays.

Encouraging more visitor dispersal and slow travel through the region would also require a more conscious focus on creating ‘nice communities’ in the hinterland and a realisation that many settlements in the Top End hinterland currently lack essential public and private services that are simply taken for granted elsewhere in the country, including transport and communications services, social and community infrastructure, local shops and producers, and so on. As advocated previously (Eliggins-Desbiolles et al., 2019), tourism planning thus needs to be more closely integrated with broader community development agendas, rather than being treated as an industry in isolation. Instead of simply chasing large numbers of tourists or external investment that have so commonly dominated government press releases in the past (Schmallegger & Carson, 2010), tourism success in the hinterland needs to be measured and communicated in different ways, including less quantitative considerations of achieved changes to local quality of life, the social and cultural value of tourism, community empowerment, and reduced sentiments of marginalization.

Re-sizing or right-sizing Top End tourism should also be thought about in the context of stimulating and serving more local or regional (intra-destination) rather than external travel. The case study illustrates that some of this has occurred almost by default, but mostly limited to business and government travellers from Darwin. The opportunities for increased leisure travel by locals ‘in their own backyards’ may not only provide some more reliable income sources for a fragile industry, but also increase the social cohesion of a resident population which is widely seen as fragmented on the basis of geography (Darwin versus the rest), culture (Indigenous and not, but also various other ethnic groups), socio-economic status, and mobility (those who live in the region for short periods of time and those who are there for life). Greater interaction in a leisured environment may help break down some of the tensions among these groups, particularly if those who have had less power in tourism development politics before now can take a lead role in facilitating interactions.

These economic and social benefits of degrowth would of cotu se be augmented by the environmental and sustainability benefits that are commonly discussed in the literature (Hall, 2009; Fletcher et al., 2019). Travel to remote places like the Top End is environmentally costly, and the infrastnrcnue required to support large volumes of external tourism can only be provided and sustained with substantial environmental compromises. Planning for smaller numbers of more highly targeted visitors, including from more proximate source markets, can include attention to how environmental costs might be reduced. It is important to note, however, that such environmental discussions have so far largely remained under the radar within the political and public discourse, as economic survival and the retention of people and services in the NT continue to dominate local agendas. Issues around climate change threatening key natural resources and attractions have not really been present, at least not to the same extent as in other affected northern destinations (Prideaux & Pabel, this volume). Increasing the number of (international) flights is commonly portrayed and accepted as an economic necessity to maintain tourism and other industries in the NT. particularly as other modes of transport (rail or road) offer few viable alternatives and no prospects for any future expansion of public transport services.

Unlike in other sensitive nature- or culture-based destinations (Fletcher et al., 2019), there have been few outspoken concerns about the negative environmental or social issues relating to ‘overtourism' (perhaps with the notable exception of Aboriginal tourism stakeholders choosing to close the famous climb of Ulruu in Central Australia in 2019). This reflects in part the high acceptance of growth as being essential for the survival of the industry and the economy overall, but it may (perhaps ironically) also reflect the fact that many small and remote communities have simply had little direct engagement with tourism in the past, as tourist flows were largely channeled through external industry stakeholders. In general, though, it appears that the environmental voice and consciousness in the NT, particularly within political circles in the greater Darwin area, has traditionally been rather weak. Major construction and mining projects have repeatedly been allowed to proceed with minimal environmental concessions and at times despite outspoken opposition from traditional landowners (Carson, Govan, & Carson, 2018). Localised environmental impacts in a vast and sparsely populated territory where nature continues to be abundant, so it seems, are a sacrifice that governments in remote jurisdictions are willing to make considering the economic realities and political pressure they are under.