In the Australian outback, youth crime is hampering efforts to restart tourism Tourism News

Alice Springs, Australia – Business has been tough lately for Ben Hall, CEO of coach operator AAT Kings.

He says visitors aren’t booking as many tours to Uluru, a huge sandstone monolith that is the most famous attraction in Australia’s vast Northern Territory, as they once did.

“We definitely saw that the journeys from Alice Springs to Uluru were a bit more relaxed,” Hall, who runs a fleet of around 30 buses focused on tours to Uluru, told Al Jazeera.

“We added a few new getaway routes to the region for this year… but it was definitely a tough trade.”

Travel and car rental companies across Australia’s Red Centre, as the country’s vast outback region is often called, have reported a similar decline in business.

While tourism operators attribute the decline to a number of factors, most agree that part of the cause is rising youth crime in Alice Springs, a remote town of around 40,000 people that serves as a base for visitors to outback attractions such as Uluru .

Over the past two years, juvenile crime in the city has drawn national media attention and fueled political unrest at both the federal and state levels, even as underage crime has also increased nationwide.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, leader of the center-left Labor Party, has visited the city several times to highlight his government’s efforts to address the problem.

In March and again in July, the Northern Territory government imposed curfews banning minors from entering the city center at night following a series of violent attacks.

The rise in crime has drawn particular media attention to Alice Springs as it comes after the Northern Territory government lifted a 15-year ban on alcohol in remote Aboriginal communities in late 2022.

In 2007, the Australian federal government conducted a series of interventions in the Northern Territory, where about a third of the population is Indigenous, in response to a territorial government report that found evidence of widespread child sexual abuse in remote Aboriginal communities.

Federal interventions criticized by some human rights groups as racist and discriminatory included a blanket ban on alcohol in remote Aboriginal communities, which was extended by several territorial governments.

Following the lifting of the alcohol ban, a series of high-profile violent incidents in Alice Springs made headlines across the country, including teenagers stealing vehicles and attacking police cars.

In the year to November 2023, the number of violent offenses by youth rose to 1,182, a 50 per cent increase compared to 2019-20, according to the Northern Territory’s Department of the Attorney-General and Justice.

After accounting for population change, the overall rate of juvenile offenders fell from 2,855 to 2,819 offenders per 100,000 people in 2022–23, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, although part of this decline can be explained by the government’s August 2023 decision to increase the age of criminal responsibility from 10 to 12 years.

Local police warned residents not to visit the city center and the Northern Territory government reintroduced a ban on alcohol sales in January 2023.

While the rise in crime has spurred politicians to act, some community leaders and legal experts have criticized the territorial government for implementing “draconian” measures such as curfews that could further stigmatize indigenous communities.

Human rights groups have also accused police of targeting indigenous people in the area, which has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world.

Last month, the Northern Territory’s newly elected government lowered the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10, sparking concerns among community leaders that Indigenous youth are being locked up at even higher rates.

The North Australian Aboriginal Justice Agency, a non-profit legal service, noted the number of prisoners in the territory increased by 22 per cent between 2018 and 2023, which it said was due to young Aboriginal people being targeted by law enforcement.

Jared Sharp, a legal officer at the charity, said in a press release that while the public was aware of an increase in youth crime in the Northern Territory, “filings in juvenile courts across the Territory had declined for three years in a row.”

The focus on juvenile crime and the subsequent crackdown has clearly been felt by tourism businesses, which typically see an increase in tourism during the dry season between April and October.

In April, tourism industry representatives called for “urgent” financial support from the government after the announcement of the first lockdown triggered a wave of customer cancellations.

In September, the Ross River Resort, a popular stop for travelers en route to Alice Springs, announced it would be closing its doors to the general public from the following month.

Martin Ansell, co-director of resort operator Grollo Group, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that tourism was down “50 to 60 percent” compared to last year.

Kirsten Holmgren, who leads tours of the East MacDonnell Ranges, said she had had a “very, very quiet” season.

“This year I had no more than six people on a 16-seater bus, so I have to work for other companies in between,” Holmgren told Al Jazeera.

While Holmgren acknowledges the problem of youth crime in Alice Springs, she believes the media has given the issue undue attention and has deterred visitors.

“So burglaries and car thefts have definitely increased. This has no impact on tourism. It only affects the locals,” Holmgren said.

Tourism Central Australia CEO Danial Rochford said crime was not the only reason tourism had suffered, citing pressure on the cost of living as well as reduced flights to Alice Springs.

Tourism in the region “faces a huge challenge,” Rochford told Al Jazeera.

While tour operators are reporting a decline in the number of visitors passing through or settling in Alice Springs and the surrounding area, tour operators are more optimistic about the number of visitors to Uluru itself.

A spokesperson for Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia, an Indigenous company that operates the local Ayers Rock resort, said the company is “entering one of its busiest times yet, celebrating the return of domestic and international guests to pre-COVID levels.” Winter”.

Rochford said Uluru’s visitor numbers had benefited since last year from additional direct flights from Cairns, Melbourne and Brisbane by Qantas and Virgin Australia respectively.

AAT Kings’ Hall agreed that accessibility by air and rising airfares to Alice Springs had created difficulties for local motor tourism operators.

“I think the big one [solution to the decline] is trying to encourage more airlines to fly to the region. Security is probably another,” Hall said.

Before domestic tourism in the Northern Territory fell sharply last year, it enjoyed a small boom as Australians flocked to the region to enjoy their newfound freedom following the lifting of COVID lockdowns.

Since then, local tourism operators have increasingly faced competition from the international market as Australians flock abroad in record numbers.

In 2023, the entire area recorded 1.6 million visitors, a decrease of 1.3 percent compared to the previous year.

Despite the return of international visitors to Alice Springs since the end of the pandemic, their numbers have not yet recovered to 2019 levels.

Despite the challenges, maintaining a vibrant tourism scene in the Northern Territory is vital not only to the local economy but also to promoting Aboriginal culture, said Jungala Kriss, an Indigenous tourism operator in Alice Springs.

“I think historically most people think of Aboriginal people from textbooks. They don’t learn much at school. They grow up not knowing Aboriginal people,” Kriss told Al Jazeera, which runs tours of the West MacDonnell Ranges that include experiences with Aboriginal art.

“So when they actually come to a place where there is a large Aboriginal population, they start to realize that [Aboriginal people] are just like them,” Kriss said.