Speaking at the Tourism Futures Conference…
Location: Hamilton Island
Weather: Scattered clouds, blue skies and 26°c. We need more wind for Race Week though!
An overnight trip to the Gold Coast….
Since starting the job as the Island Caretaker a few things have changed and life’s become a little easier:
- I’m now using a MacBook instead of a PC – ‘Once you go Mac you never go back’
- Virgin Blue very kindly let me use their VIP Lounge at Brisbane airport!
- Speaking in front of a large crowd using the contents of my head with no prompt cards no longer fills me with ‘The Fear’ and I rather enjoy it…..
Tourism Futures conference
A high speed dash down to the Marriott Hotel on the Gold Coast was today’s task for the Tourism Futures conference, a three day event involving key members of the industry from Australia and around the world.
BBC World were acting as the international media partners for the event with their reporter Nick Bryant hosting a question and answers session on the stage in front of 200 dinner guests for myself and two other speakers.
Tania Major is a hard talking, go-getter of a girl who won ‘Young Australian of the Year’ for her work helping indigenous communities. She runs her own awareness campaigns relating to the subject and is currently studying in her final year of a Phd. Her aboriginal roots give her a wealth of knowledge and experience on the subject and she has strong views on how tourism should not exploit but instead involve rural areas of Australia – those which are often overlooked by a high percentage of visitors to the country.
Laurel Papworth is Miss Social Network. Her work over the internet with blogging, twitter and social networking have pushed her site to the fourth most popular blog in Australia and the 127th in the world apparently! She’s heavily involved watching the internet, technological developments and commenting on it for both herself and business – many of whom consult with her about marketing and the future online. She’s one step ahead of most of us when it comes to the E-World and has interesting ideas on the next leap forward after Twitter etc. – some of it just a little scary!
We spoke for around ten minutes on each one of our specialist subjects, mine being ‘Life as the Island Caretaker’, the campaign behind it and how Australia is viewed on the international market. For once not even a bead of sweat left my forehead as I delivered my lines!
A hour spent socialising afterwards threw up a few familiar faces and interesting conversations. Networking is something I’d never really got into before but I’m starting to realise the massive importance of it for the generation of ideas and collection of future contacts. Let’s get talking people!
After a hearty breakfast it was a quick farewell to Bre, who’d joined me for the night having taken time out from her hectic schedule of stunt training down here at Movie World, into my waiting car and back to Brisbane airport for the flight to Hamilton Island.
End of day location: Back on Hamilton Island after a day away
Distance travelled: 2000kms
