Tourism Tasmania

The Brief

Tasmania's identity as a destination is inseparable from its natural environment, and protecting that environment while growing the visitor economy is at the heart of Tourism Tasmania's 2030 Visitor Economy Strategy. With the state government beginning to develop its next phase of waste and circular economy policy, Tourism Tasmania saw an opportunity to ensure tourism had a voice in shaping that direction.

Building on our concurrent work with the national rollout with Austrade of the Sustainable Tourism Toolkit and our Positive Impact Workshop learnings with Tourism Industry Council Tasmania, Tourism Tasmania engaged The Tourism Collective to better understand what circular economy and sustainability activity was already underway through the Regional Tourism Organisations and identify where gaps and opportunities existed that could be better supported through state-level resourcing and focus.

Our Approach

We conducted in-depth individual sessions and mentoring sessions with four Regional Tourism Organisations across Tasmania. We explored each leader's understanding of and capacity for sustainability and positive impact, what was already working well in their industry, their role in advancing circular economy leadership, and where they saw opportunities for collaboration and greater impact.

We also explored specific place-based initiatives with potential to scale projects or learnings to other regions, and gathered direct insights around the state-level policy levers, across carbon emissions, waste management and circular economy initiatives, that would make the biggest difference for tourism in their region.

Key Outcomes

• Listening and mentoring were undertaken with leaders of Destination Southern Tasmania, West by North West, East Coast Tasmania and Visit Northern Tasmania.
• Key challenges and opportunities around place-based circular economy initiatives were identified across the four regions, informing recommendations on where state government policy and funding could best support their growth and replication.
• Strategic insights were delivered to Tourism Tasmania to strengthen their contribution to the state's emerging circular economy agenda, helping to ensure tourism's voice was reflected in Tasmania's future waste and resource recovery policy direction.

Strategic Insights

• Unique Place-Based Challenges. Each region has specific, local circular economy challenges based on its industry scale and maturity and visitor volume and travel patterns.
• Tourism Voice. Tourism needs an ongoing seat at circular economy planning to maximise impact and results. Without tourism-specific consideration in how state investment is directed, funding risks missing the sector's unique needs, from visitor-facing infrastructure to waste management in remote and high-visitation areas.
• Shared Learnings, Greater Impact. Understanding what's working in each region and connecting those learnings across regions, councils and land managers is where the state government can play a meaningful coordination role.