Australia’s first climate risk assessment for its tourism industry has been released and it puts over half the country’s tourism assets in a high risk category already, with as much as 80% of the sites facing increased risks by 2050 under a worst case scenario.
The potential effects of climate change on 178 tourism assets around Australia were scrutinised by Zurich Financial Services Australia (Zurich) and Mandala Partners (Mandala) for the study, using “intermediate” and “extreme” scenarios from the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), meaning warming by 2°C by 2041-2060, or warming by 3°C, respectively.
Queensland could be worst affected
Major airports, stadiums, national parks, beaches and museums were among the list of assets across the country, as well as gardens and vineyards, geological formations and even caves. Over half of them are considered vulnerable to various of the nine “climate perils” of wind, flood, heat, cold, storm, drought, bushfire, hail and rain. That puts a significant number of the country’s 620,000 tourism jobs at risk too, the report says.
Even just the medium warming scenario of 2°C puts 68% of Australia’s tourism assets at major risk by 2050. While risks were found to vary depending on whether sites were man-made or natural, and depending on their category (for example, beaches versus vineyards or rainforests), Queensland is in the unfortunate position of possessing “both the highest number of sites facing risk overall (79%) and the most sites in the highest risk category compared to any other jurisdictions (52%).”
Iconic sites under threat
Some of the most notable findings are:
- In New South Wales, Sydney Opera House was found to be less vulnerable than the region’s beloved Blue Mountains or Bondi Beach;
- The north of the Northern Territory has sites at high risk including national parks and Darwin’s waterfronts;
- In Western Australia, it is national parks and beaches that are most vulnerable;
- South Australia’s wine regions are at significant risk, particularly from bushfire;
- Tasmanian national parks face the dual threats of both flooding and drought.
But these subtleties belie how worrying the general outlook is for a sector that brought in a spend of AU $173 billion (€104 billion) in tourism in the year ending March 2024. All 31 of Australia’s busiest airports fell into the two highest climate risk categories due to location and extreme weather exposure. Other infrastructure such as scenic roads and rail lines were also in the same position.
What struck us was just the sheer size of the problem. As we looked at the different sites around the country, it became clear how systemic this risk is.
Adam Triggs, an economics expert and Mandala partner
National sense of identity also in danger
For just a taste of the impact of climate events on the industry and the economy as a whole, 2019 and 2020’s bushfires slashed tourism revenues by 35%, knocking AU $2.8 million (€1.7 million) from tourism and its related supply chain’s output. 176,000 jobs would be on the line, the report said, if similar fires reoccurred today.
Part of the aim of the report, is “to understand the prevailing risk environment” and “shape and prepare our collective response” said Justin Delaney, Chief Executive Officer of Zurich Australia & New Zealand, adding: “Australia’s tourism assets not only play a significant role in an increasingly diverse visitor economy but are collectively central to our national identity.”
