Residents of Byron Bay, and many other tourist destinations, have divided feelings toward our visitors. We rely on their largesse, but resent their presence, the outrageous prices they pay for everything from bottled water to healing crystals and the fact that we have one hardware store and seven surf wear shops.
As usual, the fact that we cannot resolve these conflicted feelings means that we have asked the wrong question. It is not a matter of “Do we want them here?” but “How can we encourage them to spend their money in ways that benefit us all?”
The best place to start, is that classic marketing tool – The Unique Selling Proposition. They come here, as we did, seeking surf and sun or an escape from the rat race. Surf and Sun are available on most Australian beaches; if we go down that route we simply engage in a race to the bottom. That is, we compete on price, proximity to airports, availability of alcohol – in short, everything we resent about them coming.
There are three remarkable features of the Northern Rivers that we could well flog to the willing visitor. Our remarkable agriculture, natural beauty and rich cultural tapestry are assets that most tourists leave without tasting. Distasteful as it may be to exhibit ourselves to well-heeled pleasure seekers in an eco-theme park, the danger of not embracing and guiding them is that they will overrun us anyway. The alternative is to flee further afield or post armed guards at the tunnels on the Pacific Motorway to keep the buggers out.
Of course, you could pray for a complete economic depression. Then we could sit around dreaming up ways to encourage the tourists back.