Sustaining the Character of Coastal “Sea Change” Destinations in a Post-Pandemic World

Abstract

Many smaller coastal towns that rely on tourism for their economic survival have been badly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Many have since rebounded, and in some, inbound migration has soared. Unfortunately, this influx of tourists and new residents brings with it increased development and associated environmental and social changes that often negatively impact the distinctive character and sense of place many of these places possess, which makes them attractive destinations in the first place. Protecting features in the landscape that define the character of these settlements and preventing future changes that would be incompatible with it will be crucial for the environmental, social, and economic sustainability of these ‘sea change’ settlements. Once the distinctive character of these places is lost, it is nearly impossible to recapture. This paper reviews the findings of a suite of studies previously undertaken by the author that explored the perceptions of residents in ten ‘sea change’ settlements, nine in Australia and one in Thailand, regarding how they perceived the character of their towns and what features they felt were compatible or incompatible with that character. In comparing the findings from these studies, a clear pattern emerged in that similar types of landscape features were consistently identified as supporting or detracting from the character of these towns. This allowed a typology of features salient to the character of these types of ‘sea change settlements’ to be formulated, providing insights into this intangible yet highly valuable resource of place character within the context of these types of settlements and establishing a basis for further research in other similar tourism-intensive coastal settlements.

1. Introduction

As the world sheds the long shadow of the COVID-19 pandemic, many places that rely on tourism for their economic survival, including smaller coastal settlements, have since bounced back. The fall, however, had been sharp—before the pandemic, tourism accounted for over 10 percent of jobs worldwide and generated nearly 10 trillion (US $9.6 trillion) in global GDP. With people’s ability to travel impaired during the pandemic, tourism suffered drastic losses: in 2020, the industry saw an annual drop of nearly five trillion dollars (US $4.9 trillion) worldwide, down over 50 percent from the prior year [1]. While a strong recovery has since occurred in many coastal destinations, to sustain this recovery, the attractiveness of these types of places must be protected to ensure their long-term environmental, social, and commercial sustainability.

Agenda 21, which emerged from the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, identified the need for the environmental protection of coastal areas and their sustainable development while considering the values of people who inhabit these areas [2]. Completely stopping environmental change from occurring in these areas is not realistic; however, given the attractiveness of many coastal places and the threat development and other environmental changes occurring in these types of places pose to them, there is a need for these places to be managed to achieve, as much as possible, sustainable outcomes in this regard. The littoral zone, where land and sea meet, often has high ecological value and diversity. Many coastal settlements also possess unique cultural heritage features. Both the natural and cultural attributes that many of these settlements possess are often integral to their distinctive character and sense of place, which makes them attractive destinations. This is particularly true of places perceived as unspoiled and culturally ‘authentic’, imbuing them with distinctive identities of place. Similar to people’s unique personalities, places can possess distinctive characters, with some having highly recognizable and desirable characters. Tourists often gravitate to these places precisely because they have “a lot of character”. In places where that character is perceived to have been lost or noticeably degraded, the place can easily fall out of favor, with tourists likely seeking out the next “unspoiled place” to visit.

A town’s distinctive character is an intangible, experiential quality conveyed by the constellations of environmental, social, and cultural features that distinguish it from other places. However, its intangible quality makes it difficult to measure, and if something cannot be measured, it is harder to argue for its protection. While Kevin Lynch argued early on, in his seminal book Managing the Sense of a Region [3], for the conservation of the distinctive character in settlements, he also emphasized the difficulty of assessing place character because it is inherently a perceptual phenomenon. This has also been reiterated in other more empirically orientated research since then.

Yet, the distinctive character that many smaller coastal settlements possess is a resource that often functions as their primary tourism attraction. The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) has coined the phrase “endemic tourism” [4] to denote the notion that “that each individual locality or community has its special character [and] that character or identity may well constitute its major attractiveness to tourists”. While a place’s character can act as a strong catalyst in attracting tourists, it can also attract new migrants associated with what has been termed the “sea change phenomenon” [5], a form of amenity migration that involves people relocating to these sea change settlements, particularly those located near major metropolitan areas. Like tourists, these sea-change migrants are often attracted to these places because they perceive them to possess a desirable character and sense of place. This character can, however, be easily lost due to overdevelopment, inappropriate environmental design actions, over-crowding, and other forces of environmental and social change, which frequently elicit complaints from both tourists and residents alike that the distinctive character, feel and ambiance of the place has been lost, encouraging them to seek out the next “un-spoilt” place to visit or live. Some studies have found that locals and tourists will generally attribute the same types of features to the distinctive character of places yet may ascribe different meanings to these features, suggesting a balance needs to be maintained between the economic development of such places for locals while preserving the cultural and natural features and their perceived authenticity desired by tourists in the sustainable landscape development of these places [6].

But what exactly do people feel is being lost? Answering this question is problematic because tourism planning authorities typically like to quantify and, ideally, place a monetary value on resources so they can compare them with other types of resources. Yet, while a place’s distinctive character can be a valuable tourism resource, it is hard to put a price on it. Despite this, it is a task worth doing, particularly in the face of development pressures that can negatively impact the unique character that many smaller coastal destinations often possess, thereby destroying the very thing that attracts people to them in the first place.

Researchers at the University of Sydney released a report in 2005 entitled Meeting the Sea Change Challenge: Best Practice: Models of Local and Regional Planning for Sea Change Communities [7] (p. 3), in which they noted the following:

“Local character or “sense of place” in smaller coastal communities is being overwhelmed by the scale and or pace of new residential and tourism developments [8,9]. There is a lack of effective planning methodologies and tools to preserve and enhance the attributes of place (including cultural heritage sites, places for local recreation, contemplation, and encounter) that are important to local residents.”

They also categorized these “sea change settlements” into five types, including the following:

• Coastal hamlets—smaller, rural coastal communities, often near protected natural areas.
• Coastal getaways—small to medium-sized coastal towns within a three-hour drive of a major city and generally set in predominately natural areas with high ecological, scenic, and recreational values.
• Coastal lifestyle destinations—small to medium-sized settlements predominantly focused on tourism and leisure activities and typically located a three-hour drive or more from a major city.
• Coastal commuter settlements—larger towns located close enough to major centers of the population making commuting to work a feasible option.
• Coastal regional cities—regional cities located on the coast.

The studies reported in this article focused exclusively on ten coastal hamlets, getaway, and lifestyle-type settlements in Australia and Thailand within different geographic and cultural settings. These studies aimed to explore how those places’ residents conceptualized their towns’ character and what they felt was responsible for its loss. The focus of those studies was on identifying features in the local landscapes that were perceived by the residents to be instrumental in conveying the distinctive character of these towns, along with those features they perceived to detract from, or were incompatible, with that character. The overarching aim of the review presented here was to compare the results from these previous studies to gain a better understanding of how residents in these types of settlements perceive local place character and the degree of overlap between towns in terms of the types of features that they perceived to support or detract from the character of those towns. It was hypothesized that members of these various communities would share similar conceptions of the types of features they felt were most important in defining the character of their towns and those they perceived to be most ‘out of character’, which could then be generalized to other similar types of ‘sea change’ settlements.

2. Background

Various places worldwide have employed the notions of place character, sense of place, place identity, and related concepts to protect areas and associated features possessing distinctive qualities worthy of conservation. Various types of “character legislation” that recognize the intangible value of the character of certain places have also been introduced. For example, the United Kingdom has enacted legislation at the national level to protect places of outstandingly special character, which are typically defined as areas that possess collections of spectacular, large, unusual, or highly scenic features and areas “of special architectural or historic interest, the character or appearance of which is desirable to preserve or enhance”. This legislation directs local governments to protect areas of unique townscape and landscape character by designating them as Conservation Areas deserving of careful management to protect that character [10]. Regular appraisals must also be made of the condition of the character of those areas.

As an example, Cornwall, which is a popular tourist destination in the south of England, has designated many such Conservation Areas [11], along with specifying explicit procedures for undertaking the assessment and management of the character of these areas to prevent environmental changes that could potentially degrade an area’s distinctive character. Likewise, the Island of Jersey has implemented procedures aimed at protecting its “unique character”, as outlined in its 2020 Jersey Integrated Landscape and Seascape Character Assessment (ILSCA) report [12]. This report outlines an approach for identifying and assessing the unique combination of physical features and cultural influences that make the character of some of the island’s landscapes highly distinctive. Other forms of character legislation, for example, as has been implemented in Northern Ireland, directly involve residents in identifying townscape features they consider essential to an area’s sense of place and “special townscape character”, which, once identified, are then considered for planning protection [13]. This recognition of the value of the character of places is distinct from more practical and “objective” concerns such as health, safety, and property value. Yet, in many areas, it is the primary attraction for tourists, and its perceived loss often elicits complaints from tourists and residents alike.

Tourism-intensive places, such as the coastal ‘sea change’ settlements discussed in this article, are often threatened by increasing visitor numbers and accompanying development, traffic, and a range of other disturbances, all of which can threaten qualities associated with their unique character and sense of place. The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has developed a valuable procedure for assessing tranquility, an essential intangible quality often associated with places deemed to possess valued character [14]. Their approach involves mapping a set of characteristics related to the experience of tranquility, including hearing birdsongs, seeing and hearing other forms of wildlife, seeing natural-looking landscapes and vegetation, and hearing running water. Characteristics associated with non-tranquil environments, such as hearing noise from cars, seeing and hearing lots of people, and seeing signs of urban development, including overhead light pollution and other attributes that detract from the tranquility of a place, are also mapped.

While various regulatory initiatives have been developed to protect the valued character of places of concern, as is the case of the UK’s Conservation Area designation, these types of ‘character legislations’ are seldom based on understanding how the residents and tourists of these places experience the character of places of concern. Instead, the judgment of environmental planning and design experts is often relied upon to determine what is most essential to protect and what should be discouraged in managing a place’s character. The problem is that these expert-based assessments can often be incongruent with the values and perceptions of tourists and residents [15,16]. While such professionals may have high levels of specialization in environmental planning and design, it can be argued that the true experts in assessing the character of a place are its residents and the visitors who are motivated, at least in part, to travel to a place to experience its unique character. Residents and tourists often grasp a place’s intangible qualities better than planning experts because they develop from their experiences and familiarity with the local environment over time. Expert-based initiatives are seldom based on understanding how residents or tourists experience the character of places.

Expert-based approaches to the assessment of place character are also more likely to overlook the emotional bonds or place attachments [17,18,19] residents can form with specific places and place features that develop over time and with increasing familiarity, and these bonds can be instrumental in shaping how people experience a place’s character. This is often because expert-based assessments typically rely on information derived from objective sources—reports, photographs, maps, etc.—and tend not to be based on long-term relationships with the places and their users. In contrast, assessments based on the residents’ perceptions, who are likely to have much greater familiarity with their local environments and have established emotional bonds with them, are more likely to be identified with user-based approaches. The experts who typically undertake these types of studies are themselves often outsiders to the places being assessed and, as such, are less likely to experience the same sense of belonging and attachment to the places as the residents who are insiders. As Relph has suggested in his seminal book Place and Placelessness [20], place experiences of ‘insiders’ (e.g., the user public) and ‘outsiders’ (e.g., experts) will be inherently different. When the place attachments of insiders are threatened or disrupted due to environmental changes, such as rapid urban development, such as in the context of coastal sea change towns, which were the focus of the studies discussed in this article, they can threaten people’s sense of continuity and belonging to those places, which can sometimes have profound psychological consequences for people who feel their place identity is threatened [21].

Coastal sea change settlements often develop over time with a distinct pattern of residential and commercial development distributed linearly with properties located to obtain ocean views and be as close to the sea as possible [22]. This is reflected in property values, with those closer to the sea commanding higher prices. As these settlements grow, negative impacts on their natural environments and features of cultural heritage value frequently manifest. Ecological impacts, including degradation and fragmentation of habitat, particularly coastal wetlands, the introduction of exotic plant and animal (e.g., pet cats and dogs) species, changes in hydrological systems, and increased erosion due to increased impervious covering (e.g., paving and buildings) ground surfaces, can also occur. These changes will manifest differently depending on the geographic location, scale, physical and biological characteristics, population size and composition, distance from major metropolitan areas, and other factors associated with places. Yet, over time, these changes can result in the loss of the same types of environmental features that made them desirable places to live and visit in the first place, often to their detriment, economically and environmentally.

This loss or degradation of a place’s character, within the context of these types of coastal town settings, often comes in the form of larger buildings built in visually prominent locations in the landscape. It can happen less obviously, which is no less damaging, through longer-term, incremental changes where older, often smaller houses are bought up, demolished, and replaced with McMansion-style developments. Towns along Australia’s Great Ocean Road, the focus of seven studies discussed in this article, have seen these types of developments proliferate over the last couple of decades (Figure 1), a phenomenon ubiquitous in many other coastal settlements worldwide. If natural ecosystems are also damaged due to poorly sited and designed architecture, infrastructure, and inappropriate landscape design actions, the problem can be compounded. Furthermore, many of these coastal seaside settlements will likely need to install new infrastructure; existing infrastructure will need to be retrofitted and land uses re-thought to adapt to climate change, which, if not appropriately managed, will further negatively impact the distinctive character that many of these places possess. Sometimes, people will even need to be relocated in responses to climate change and its impacts [23].

3. Methods and Study Areas

The methodology used in the studies reported here was implemented in nine Australian and one Southeast Asian coastal ‘sea change’ towns, including Ban Chaweng on the Island of Koh Samui in Thailand, and in Australia, Byron Bay in Northern New South Wales, Airlie Beach in Central Queensland, and Torquay, Anglesea, Aireys Inlet, Lorne, Apollo Bay, and Port Fairy located along Victoria’s Great Ocean Road west of Melbourne [24,25,26,27]. All these coastal settlements have experienced development and growth related to tourism and new residents migrating to them over the last couple of decades. This development, along with the associated environmental, social, and economic changes, has impacted the distinctive characters and sense of place in all these places. The studies reported here used a range of comparable methods. First, the landscape features that the residents in each of the towns perceive to be compatible or incompatible with the distinctive character of their towns were identified. These data were collected using survey and interview methods, including mailed questionnaires in all the towns along Victoria’s Great Ocean Road and in Byron Bay in New South Wales, and face-to-face interviews, which included a projective mapping component in Airlie Beach in Queensland and Ban Chaweng in Thailand.

Once the most frequently mentioned ‘in character’ and ‘out of character’ features were identified, from the open-ended questions in the mailed questionnaires and the projective mapping interview data, the most frequently identified features were photographed in the field, from which sets of stimuli images were created for each of the towns and used in the next phase of those studies. The number of stimuli photographs for each town ranged from 68 (Port Campbell) to 109 (Anglesea). These photographs were used as stimuli for collecting data to measure the degree to which the features depicted in the photographs were perceived to be compatible or not with the charter of the towns studied from the residents’ perspective. These data were collected through conducting photo-rating workshops and Photo Q-sorting interviews depending on the towns, which, in the case of both of these methods, required the respondents to rate the degree of compatibility of the depicted features with the town’s character using a seven-point, bipolar rating scale, from strongly compatible with the town’s character to strongly incompatible with it, as judged by samples of resident respondents. The rating scale data generated from the photo-rating workshops and Photo Q-sort interviews were comparable across the different towns as both relied on seven-point rating scale responses to the depicted features. The data were aggregated across the respondent samples for each of the towns, from which aggregated ratings for each feature/photo were derived in which a mean of 1 represents the strongest degree of combability with the town’s character and a mean of 7 represents the most incompatible with the town’s character, with intermediate ratings representing varying degrees of character compatibility. While the data collected using these methods is comparable, the way it was collected in each of the ten settlements was adjusted to adapt to the study sites’ different geographic and cultural settings.

Table 1. Respondent sample sizes for data collection methods by towns.

Towns	Data Collection Methods
	Mail Surveys and Projective Mapping Face-to-Face Interviews *	Photo-Rating Workshops and Photo-Sorting Interviews **
Torquay 1	293	34
Anglesea 1	300	36
Aireys Inlet 1	230	65
Lorne 1	263	98
Apollo Bay 1	140	132
Port Campbell 1	24	17
Port Fairy 1	94	18
Byron Bay 2	318	55
Airlie Beach 3	60	21
Ban Chaweng 4	19	40
Total	1741	516

Note: * Methods used for identifying character-defining features, ** Methods for assessing perceived character compatibility of character-defining features. Sources: ¹ [27]; ² [24]; ³ [25]; ⁴ [26].

provides a breakdown of respondent numbers by the data collection methods and respondent numbers as initially reported in the studies reviewed here [24,25,26,27].

The data generated from these towns were analyzed using a range of qualitative and quantitative procedures, including content analysis of open-ended mail survey data, open-ended questions related to projective mapping, photo-rating, and photo-sorting interviews. Simple descriptive statistics, including means and standard deviation values, were generated from the photo-rating and Photo Q-sort data, which were aggregated to derive a measure of the degree of perceived ‘character compatibility’ of the depicted features as a measure of their contribution to the character of the respective towns. The possibility of sub-group differences, e.g., due to gender, age, length of residency, environmental history, and other variables, had also been explored using t-tests and ANOVA, as well as correlation analysis to determine associations between the ratings of the different features. In some of these studies, the data were also subjected to various multivariant procedures, including Multidimensional Scaling Analysis (MDS), Categorical Principal Component Analysis (CAPTA), and Multiple Discriminate Function Analysis. These analyses are not reported here due to word limits. Still, if readers are interested, they can refer to the previously published articles on Byron Bay [24], Airlie Beach [25], Ban Chaweng [26], and the towns along the Great Ocean Road [27].

4. Results

As mentioned, the studies discussed here were conducted in ten different ‘sea change’ communities over a period of a decade within different geographic and cultural settings. The findings from these studies allowed comparisons across the different study area towns to be made to identify possible general types of landscape features and the perceived compatibility of these features with the distinctive character of coastal ‘sea change’ settlements studied. As previously mentioned, respondent groups in each town were asked to use seven-point, bipolar rating scales to measure the degree of compatibility with a town’s character, in which a rating of 1 means the depicted feature is very strongly ‘in character’. In contrast, a rating of 7 means a feature is perceived to be very strongly ‘out of character’, with a rating between these poles equating to varying degrees of character compatibility. An aggerated mean rating between 1 and 2 suggests that a feature was perceived to be strongly to moderately ‘in character’; a mean rating between 2 and 3 suggests it was perceived to be moderately ‘in character’, and a mean rating between 3 and 4 indicates it was perceived to be slightly ‘in character.’ Similarly, if a feature received a rating between 6 and 7, it means it was perceived to be strongly ‘out of character’; a rating between 5 and 6 means it was perceived to be moderately to slightly ‘out of character’, and a rating of 4 indicates it was perceived to be neutral. The review of the studies presented here aimed to compare the aggregate ratings for the different features across the settlements and link them with different landscape features. This comparison revealed a remarkable pattern in terms of the similarity of the types of features identified in each of the towns studied and the degree to which these different types of features were perceived to be compatible or not with the character of those towns.

The typology of character-defining features that emerged revealed a range of features rated as strongly compatible with the character of the different towns to those rated as strongly incompatible with their characters. Features rated strongly compatible or strongly incompatible are particularly revealing as many of these features share specific characteristics. For example, almost all the features rated as strongly ‘out of character’ across all the towns were larger buildings, and in two of the Great Ocean Road towns (Lorne and Aireys Inlet), utility poles and powerlines that blocked the views of the sea were rated as the most strongly ‘out of character’. While not very abundant in the studied towns, small industrial sites were also rated as being moderately to strongly ‘out of character’.

4.1. Feature Rated Strongly to Moderately ‘In Character’

The features identified as strongly to moderately contributing to the character of the various towns fell into distinct types of both natural and built/cultural environmental elements. Features consistently rated as strongly compatible with the towns’ character were overwhelmingly natural features. This included indigenous vegetation, coastal geological and geomorphological formations (e.g., rocky shoreline cliffs and large rock formations along the coastline), beaches and dunes, wildlife habitat areas (e.g., for Kangaroo and various types of birds), and other natural features. For example, the water features of various kinds were consistently rated as strongly compatible with the character of all the towns, including streams, rivers, wetlands, waterfalls, and estuaries. The views of the sea and nearby hinterlands were also consistently rated as strongly ‘in character’. Features that allowed people access to natural areas (e.g., paths, boardwalks, bridges) were likewise consistently identified as being very important to the distinctive character of these towns. These highly ‘in character’ features should be encouraged and given high priority regarding their protection.

Heritage buildings were consistently identified as moderately to strongly compatible with the distinctive character of the towns studied. Vernacular ‘beach shack’ houses, which were built in towns along the Great Ocean Road in the 1950s and 1960s and have a particular style of architecture, were also perceived to be moderately ‘in character’. Other built features were consistently identified as moderately to slightly ‘in character’, including detached residential houses, visitor accommodation (e.g., hotels and motels), and commercial developments. There were some more contemporary houses and buildings that were also rated as being moderately ‘in character’, particularly those that were set in established Indigenous vegetation. Some roads with specific characteristics, e.g., lined with tall trees, unpaved, or narrower, were also identified as moderately ‘in character’ within some of the towns. However, as mentioned, utility poles and wires running along some roads were often perceived as strongly ‘out of character’. Active public spaces in prominent locations, such as foreshore open spaces and beach areas, were also perceived to be moderately ‘in character’ across the different settlements.

The following illustrations (Figure 2, Figure 3, Figure 4, Figure 5, Figure 6, Figure 7, Figure 8 and Figure 9) are of selected features identified in the studies on which the review provided here was based. The primary aim of this review was to identify and categorize similar character-defining features across the different towns that had been previously studied to see if a pattern emerged that could suggest a general typology of the types of features that support or detract from the character of the towns that had been studied that could then be generalized to other similar types of coastal sea change settlements in other places.

4.2. Feature Rated Strongly to Moderately ‘Out of Character’

Those features perceived to be moderately to strongly ‘out of character’ were overwhelmingly newer built features, particularly large, single-family detached ‘MacMansion’ type houses described as out of scale, boxy, lacking sufficient surface articulation and vegetative screening. Other features that were rated as moderately to strongly ‘out of character’ included buildings that were perceived to be too visually dominant in the landscape, particularly if they interfered with views of natural environments or the sea. Many multi-unit residential dwellings (e.g., apartment blocks) were rated moderately to strongly ‘out of character’ (Figure 10 and Figure 11).

5. Discussion

Each of the features/places associated with the character of the different towns identified in the studies on which this review was based have unique stories to tell that collectively imbue each of these towns with their distinctive characters. The findings suggest certain types of features warrant protection. The results from the studies and areas where they overlap across the studied coastal settlements have various managerial, social, and theoretical implications, which are discussed in this section.

5.1. Managerial Implications

Each one of the features/places associated with the character of the different towns reported in this paper warrants protection in the context of these kinds of sea change settlements. Natural features, including coastal ecosystems, Indigenous vegetation, areas of wildlife habitat, water bodies, distinctive geological features, and other types of natural features, were repeatedly identified as strongly to moderately ‘in character’ in the towns studied. Similarly, there were reoccurring types of cultural features, particularly heritage buildings, that were rated as moderately to strongly ‘in character’, and these types of features were identified across all the towns that had been the focus of those studies. Such cultural heritage features, like the natural features, were found to collectively form the substrate upon which the character of these small coastal towns is built. Popular social gathering spaces were likewise identified as crucial to the sense of place and the distinct characters of these places and need to be encouraged in the planning and management of these types of settlements.

In many instances, the features and places depicted in the photographs used as stimuli in the original studies, some of which are illustrated in this article, have changed in various ways. Increased development has occurred in many of these towns. For example, some heritage buildings have since been removed or replaced with new ones. In some cases, the views that were identified as integral to the character of some of these towns are now obscured. Vegetation visible in the original photographs has also, in many cases, since grown larger or has been removed or replaced with new plantings. In other instances, more widespread changes to ecological and geomorphological conditions have occurred, including some potentially attributable to climate change [23]. In many cases, the materials, colors, scale relationships, and a range of finer-grained characteristics associated with the design of built features have also since changed. These are the types of attributes that need to be monitored in an attempt to sustain the distinctive character and sense of place these places possess.

Controlling the form and siting of new development to protect natural systems and cultural heritage features and blending new development with the natural landscape and existing cultural heritage features are also crucial for sustaining the distinctive character of these types of places. One way of accomplishing this is through strong statutory regulations and strategic planning measures that can ensure that new development will be compatible with a town’s desirable existing character as much as possible [28,29]. Protecting landscape features that convey a town’s distinctive character will be necessary to ensure its environmental, social, and economic sustainability and not lose its competitiveness with other places.

The consideration of proposed environmental changes, particularly those associated with the development of the built environment, could be assessed with respect to their compatibility with a town’s character before they are constructed. This would allow the form, siting, quantity, and rate of new development, particularly its impact on natural environments, to be considered a priori, allowing them to be controlled through various planning measures [27]. However, assessing the compatibility of such introduced features against a town’s character is typically not prioritized by local government planners and tourism area managers, despite the value placed by their residents and tourists alike on the distinctive character of these coastal sea change settlements.

The findings from the types of perceptually based character assessment studies, as discussed in this article, could also be used to guide the formulation of local planning schemes and associated statutory development controls aimed at protecting landscape features essential to the character of the places of concern and discouraging those types of features that would be incompatible with that character. The findings of studies like the ones reviewed here could also be used to guide landscape and architectural design actions to help ensure that the outcomes would be more likely to ‘fit’ into the context of a settlement’s distinctive character and sense of place [6,29].

Conserving the distinctive character that many coastal sea change settlements possess, which is often instrumental in attracting tourists to these places, should not simply be about freezing those places and the associated salient features in time, which in most cases would not be unrealistic or desirable. Instead, the aim should be to protect a framework of the most valuable and valued landscape features while managing future environmental change in a way that will harmoniously build on this framework over time. This, however, first requires understanding what the most essential features are that define the character of the places of concern and what features detract from that character so that those types of features and the associated characteristics can be encouraged or avoided in the future.

5.2. Theoretical Implications

While a town’s distinctive character and sense of place is an intangible phenomenon, yet linked to physical elements of the natural and built environment, it is often profoundly important to both residents and tourists and, therefore, the need to protect it to ensure these types of settlements’ environmental, social, and economic sustainability. This is particularly true in those places that are also facing other challenges, such as having to adapt to climate change. An attempt, therefore, should be made to identify and integrate the multiple values and associated meanings associated with the types of place features related to the characters of the coastal settlements that were the focus of this article. However, a sense of place also involves the intangible aspects of places and people’s affective bonds, or place attachments [18,19] to those places and the associated environmental and social features. It also involves their cogitative responses to features vital to the users’ place identity [21] and the physical environment’s contribution to one’s sense of personal identity.

There is a large body of existing literature concerning theoretical aspects of ‘place character’ and ‘sense of place’ [30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38], ‘place attachment’ [18,19], and related concepts that are associated with how people experience the character of places. However, limited empirical research has focused on how people conceptualize and experience the character of places they live or visit and how this character transforms over time. This type of research is particularly relevant in smaller coastal, tourism-intensive settlements that often rely on their distinctive character for economic survival, which can be easily lost due to various types of environmental changes.

Sustaining the values for the natural environment and cultural landscapes associated with these settlements’ distinctive sense of place is, however, challenging. However, the aim should be to protect these values by providing a framework of the most valuable and valued landscape features while managing future environmental change in a way that will harmoniously build on this framework over time. Such a framework assumes that cultural heritage and natural features are deeply related to human–nature relationships. This notion was explored, for example, in one study that looked at six European coastal and maritime heritage settlements, which revealed that the natural environment provided the setting for heritage features and was highly instrumental in shaping the meanings people associate with the built environment. However, the results of those studies illustrate differences between communities’ and stakeholders’ perspectives on managing heritage resources that are often important to the character of these types of settlements. Therefore, understanding the meanings that different user groups associate with features is instrumental in defining the character of the places of concern, along with those perceived to detract from that character, so that they might be avoided in the future if necessary [39].

5.3. Social Implications

Australian coastal settlements experienced their strongest population growth rate in 2020–2021, which continued an established pattern, as coastal areas grew faster each year before the pandemic. Did the pandemic drive growth in 2020–2021 by making semi-rural coastal areas relatively more attractive, or would this growth have happened regardless? [40]. The increased ability of people to work remotely was one of the main driving forces in this exodus to these coastal settlements. This attraction to the coast and the development it has brought to them, in turn, resulted in environmental and social changes to these places, threatening the qualities that made these attractive destinations in the first place. The social impacts associated with this growth and tourism include polarization of tourists and residents; gentrification with wealthy tourists and new migrants being able to pay more for housing and other items than residents, thereby driving up the costs of things; the transience of tourist populations and seasonal differences in populations and loss of a sense of community; increased outward migration; increased crime, and general degradation of local culture. [7]. However, tourism can also positively impact local communities through economic gains, rejuvenation of local culture, and infrastructure development. Some research has found that if tourism is perceived positively, the resident’s quality of life can be improved, leading to more positive attitudes toward tourism initiatives and development [38].

6. Conclusions

The review presented here was only based on a suite of studies that were undertaken in several coastal towns in Australia and Thailand, in which the ‘character compatibility’ and the salience of landscape features to the character were assessed as seen through the eyes of people living in those places. This same approach could, however, be taken in other types of tourism-intensive settlements that similarly rely on their distinctive characters and sense of place for their economic survival. The basic methodology can be used for undertaking these types of assessments in other similar settlements.

Future research could also explore, for example, what the catalysts for changes that have either positively or negatively impacted a place’s distinctive character were, which may have been due to specific planning actions or regulations, ecological degradation, climate change impacts, or other drivers of environmental change. Future research could also explore why particular changes may have occurred. For example, were they due to specific planning actions or regulations that permitted or discouraged certain types of development, because of ecological degradation and fragmentation, due to climate change impacts or other factors? The results of such studies would provide clues as to which planning and environmental design actions to avoid and which to encourage in the future. The question concerning how those changes are perceived to support or detract from the character of these places by the current residents or visitors is also worthy of further research. For example, the towns discussed in this article could be revisited, and new data could collected some 20 or more years later to address this question. Questions about if and how attitudes towards those features may have changed since the original studies were conducted could also be explored to provide a better theoretical understanding of this phenomenon. As part of this future research, monitoring stations at specific sites could be established to track changes over time and monitor local perceptions of those changes concerning the impacts they may have on the distinctive character and sense of the place of these settlements over time [27] While only ten coastal ‘sea change’ settlements in Australia and Asia were the focus of the studies reported in this article, conducting these types of studies in similar tourism-intensive settlements in other geographic locations and countries using the same methodological approach would be a worthwhile focus of this type of future research.