Australian Regional Tourism announces new Chair

Coralie Bell, Tourism Manager at Shoalhaven Council, has been announced as the new Chair at Australian Regional Tourism (ART).

Replacing outgoing Chair Simon McArthur, Bell is committed to tourism, highlighting that while being Australia’s biggest export behind coal and ore, “is not without it’s challenges”.

Bell (pictured) advised “state and regional tourism organisation, local government areas and tourism operators struggle with similar issues in regional Australia – development of agritourism, International visitor dispersal, infrastructure challenges, the availability of adequate research and data, skills shortages, sustainability, visitor centres and much more.

“ART play a critical role in promoting sustainable regional industry development to help our regional communities support jobs all year round through regionally focused research, assisting areas with best practice in destination management, and assisting at a national level with product development, agritourism is a key industry we are working on helping move forward.”

McArthur congratulated Bell on her appointment, stating “I couldn’t be happier to welcome Coralie and our new board members to ART, we are very lucky to have such a skilled and qualified volunteer board.

“Regional tourism needs people with passion to tackle the challenges and unite our industry.”

Commenting on her appointment, Bell said she has “some big shoes to fill”, adding “this year we have already launched a paper on agritourism, a new tourism hub for forums and networking, held a convention with record attendance numbers and are working to develop a national tourism paper for local government.

“We look forward to getting more local government organisations on board and also continuing our work in the agritourism space.”

Joining Bell on the ART Board are returning board members Patricia Wilkinson, ART Deputy Chair; Stuart Lamont, Chief Executive at Caravan Industry Association of Australia; Linda Tillman, Managing Director at Tilma Group; Nick Baker, Chief Executive at Outdoria; Lucy White, General Manager at Destination Network Country and Outback NSW; and Andrew Hiebl, Chief Executive at the Association of Australian Convention Bureaux.

New to the ART Board is Anthony Osborne, Managing Director at Sapphire Coast Destination Marketing and Donna Foster, Manager Tourism and Economic Development at Mt Gambier City Council.