Operators pitch Rainbow Beach on the world stage
Tanya Beech from Rainbow Ocean Palms and Jan Foletta, Great Beach Drive 4WD Tours – say hi to another Rainbow local at ATE17, currently International Sales Manager for Tourism Whitsundays, Sharon and Richard Whitney ‘s daughter, Emma (left)
The Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE) is Australia’s largest annual travel and tourism business-to-business event.
In 2017, it was hailed the biggest ATE in nearly a decade, bringing together more than 2,500 travel industry delegates including 400 Queensland sellers and over 700 buyer delegates from more than 30 countries last month.
Ty van Santen from Epic Ocean Adventures was impressed, “I think Rainbow Beach is on the map! There was a lot of interest in our region: ‘The new doorstep to Fraser Island’.
“We noticed a lot of ITO’s have Hervey Bay as a destination to go to Fraser Island. One of our main focus points was convincing them that Rainbow Beach is the place to go!
“More tours and activities, better beaches, local experience, accessible by the Great Beach Drive from Noosa, only 10 minutes by ferry. I think we convinced them! Our town will notice the potential of the ITO’s over the next few years.”
Ty is excited by this because international clients will visit in the off-season when business is very quiet.
“For us it’s about becoming more diverse in what we offer and not having to rely so much on the school holiday periods. The backpacker market is very good but we feel we can get a much broader range of clients to the area.
“We are hoping any impact we may have will generate more business for the town for, all as we know, not everyone wants the same things to do or eat or place to stay.”
He emphasised it was imperative that Rainbow Beach continues to offer a good range of activities, services, accommodation and dining.
DGR chief, Andrew Saunders said, “Gympie region’s presence, most notably Rainbow Beach, was excellent – and all operators had successful meetings with a number of influential inbound tourism operators. There was a great deal of interest in the product of the region.
“The support coming from Rainbow Beach operators was noticeable, and many commented on the number of tourism operators presenting from such a small area.”
ATE also provides international travel buyers with the opportunity to experience destinations first-hand through pre- and post-event familiarisations, something else which kept Andrew and local operators busy last month!
