New professional development program to help regional tourism professionals navigate post-lockdown visitor economy

Australian Regional Tourism (ART) has unveiled a comprehensive online professional development training program for local government and tourism professionals.

Launched this week at a meeting of regional tourism organisations in Melbourne, the program has been tailored specifically for regional destinations, aiming to help tourism providers restimulate visitation to regional areas impacted by two years of COVID-related travel restrictions.

The program, sponsored by Tourism Australia, will be delivered online via the Tourism Hub, providing a universally accessible tool for regional tourism industry professionals to better understand the role of the visitor economy in regional communities and best practice industry planning and development.

 Coralie Bell, Chair at Australian Regional Tourism, commented "destination managers and tourism managers in the regions don't always have access to professional development and tourism capability building programs. This program has been developed by the regional tourism community, and for the regional tourism community, and sets the minimum level of knowledge required to work effectively within destination development.

"The program is delivered online to enable self-paced learning and accessed via The Tourism Hub. The Tourism Hub is a critical tool for anyone working in the tourism industry and provides a single platform to access everything tourism, from the latest data, research, news, and grant funding programs to digital networking across regions.

ART’s training program will cover 12 modules across a broad spectrum of insightful topics including:

• Introduction to tourism and the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW)

• The importance of social license

• Destination management planning

• Destination management planning - the implementation phase

• Crisis planning

• Local Government and the visitor economy

• Visitor information centres

• Marketing segmentation

• Destination marketing

• Destination storytelling

• Grant writing

• Leadership

• Regional events

Modules will be delivered by leading tourism professionals including Bell, Rob Dougan of Tourism Australia, Alysia Brandenburg of Ecotourism Australia, Mark Greaves of The Tourism Group, Paul Matthews of the Visitor Economy Tourism Consultancy, Hamish Fell of Fell Consulting, Steve Thompson and Cinnamon Dunsford from Locale Consulting, Linda Tilman at the rEvents Academy, Cara George of Hipscotch, Ali Uren from Kiikstart, Hannah Stratham of Media Mortar, Peter Freeman of Woof Media, Carolyn Childs of My Travel Research and Paige Rowett and Rebecca White from Tourism eSchool.

Costs: $375 ART members and $645 non-ART members while discounted rates are offered for multiple participants.

Click here to participate or become an ART member. 

Click here to learn more about The Tourism Hub.

Image: Paddleboarding beneath outback Queensland's Cobbold Gorge Glass Bridge.