Queensland on Tour Europe 2017
Posted on January 25th, 2017
While we’ve been experiencing a steamy summer here in Australia, on the other side of the world in the freezing cold, a dedicated team from our Queensland Tourism industry (including the Southern Great Barrier Reef destination) has been selling to hundreds of key tourism Product Managers and travel agents throughout Europe!
Every two years, Tourism and Events Queensland (TEQ) hosts this major sales roadshow over 10 days throughout Europe with the opportunity for only twenty (20) Queensland destinations and operators to meet with nearly 300 travel agents and conduct 152 one-on-one individual appointments in Zurich (Switzerland), Milan (Italy), Oberjoch, Allgau, Nurnberg and Dusseldorf (Germany).
The logistics of this sales mission is absolutely incredible thanks to TEQ Europe International Director, Kai Ostermann and his team Annette Kegel (Market Development and PR Manager France/Italy) Peter Mierzwiak (Senior Public Relations Manager), Adriana Fischer (Market Development Manager Germany, Switzerland, Austria), and supported by Michael Sommer (Senior Advisor International based in Brisbane).
Over the past four years, Capricorn Enterprise has personally hosted all of these key TEQ team members to our precinct of the SGBR destination and they have absolutely loved it.
Our very own Deanne Bowd, now for the second time (2015 and 2017) has represented the three regions (Capricorn, Gladstone, Bundaberg) and our ‘trade ready’ products in the Southern Great Barrier Reef at Qld on Tour Europe.
An enormous amount of preparation goes into this sales mission and then each day on tour is quite literally 15 hour days of appointments, networking events and travel. Attendance fees at Qld on Tour is shared between the three regional tourism organisations (RTOs) in the Southern Great Barrier Reef destination (Capricorn, Gladstone, Bundaberg) with Dee Bowd also preparing and following up on all leads upon her return.
Inclusion in Qld on Tour Europe should not be underestimated. Our ‘SGBR team’ has worked extremely hard, combining our limited funds and resources for many years, to ensure our destination (and appropriate trade ready product) is included alongside larger destinations like Tropical North Queensland/Port Douglas, Whitsundays, Sunshine Coast/Noosa and Fraser Coast/Island.
When you hear talk about the ‘gap in the map’ , it is major sales missions like this, supported by travel agent and media PR visits that is changing this syndrome. We do not sit back and expect visitors just to find us – tourism operators need to be trade ready, paying appropriate commissions to Inbound Tour Operators (ITO’s) and Wholesalers in the tourism industry so that they ‘exist’ in the awareness of both our national and international distribution networks. I sincerely thank and congratulate those operators who are now ‘playing in this space’, contracting with ITO’s and Wholesalers, and participating in our Trade mentoring programs and sales missions.
Until next time….. Mary Carroll CEO Capricorn Enterprise
