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THE Gold Coast’s ailing tourism industry will pitch with the city’s best assets to operators from the Asia-Pacific and Middle East regions.
Tourism Queensland’s (TQ) Stage Eastern Hemisphere workshop gives the state’s operators a chance to showcase their offerings to overseas travel trade executives and increase business with key international markets.
About 90 travel executives from Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, India, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and the Middle East are meeting at the RACV Royal Pines Resort with 65 local tourism businesses.
TQ international executive director Wendy Harch says the workshop was well received.
“I spoke with a couple of high-end hotels and they said they held very productive meetings. There was a really good feeling in the room,” says Harch.
“Everyone showed up at the workshop. We are seeing a return to more bookings and getting a positive response to our market ahead of the busy end-of-year season.”
Overseas travel executives will spend tomorrow seeing more of the state’s southeast region first-hand.
“They had a great private event at Sea World last night and some of them will head up to Dreamworld, Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast,” says Harch.
“It shows what incentives there are for big and corporate groups.”
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