27-05-2022
Representatives from many tourism businesses and community groups from across the Shire attended the first meet and greet session for 2022 at the Visitor Information Centre hosted on Tuesday 11 May hosted by Council’s Tourism Department.
The Meet and Greet offered the opportunity for businesses and groups to mingle and network, advising of coming activities and events, while meeting the new Tourism Team.
The new team, led by Manager of Economic Development and Tourism, Christiane Cocum, consists of Vivienne Flanagan (Visitor Experience Liaison Officer), Jean O’Neil (Visitor Experience Officer) and newest addition, Sarah Page (Digital Media and Visitor Experience Officer).
It is proposed to hold the meetings monthly on the second Tuesday of every month to provide an opportunity for business and community groups shire wide who are involved in the visitor economy to network, share ideas, and gain an understanding of each other’s businesses.
Ms Cocum is firm in her belief that understanding and appreciating what our counterparts are doing improves opportunities to cross-promote them with other businesses to customers, providing a flow-on effect shire-wide.
“We have some amazing businesses doing incredible things and we want to celebrate that shire-wide,” she said.
“This platform provides the perfect opportunity to do just that.”
“We are updating all our contact lists and urge everyone to get in touch with us to ensure we have correct details,” Ms Cocum said.
Every month people from different sectors will be asked to speak about their business or industry and promote their product.
This month was Belinda Foley from Beelinda’s Bee Hive was provided the opportunity to provide tastings of her award-winning honeys and speak about her business and most recent awards at Sydney’s Royal Easter Show. Collector Wines and Hatherleigh and Laggan Estate kindly sponsored the wine tastings. It is intended that there will be tastings by our local producers every month.
General Manager Colleen Worthy said that it was great to have an award-winning business owner available to pass on her experiences to other businesses and organisations.
“But on a personal level, it was also great to be able to buy a few of her delicious honey samples to take home,” she said
The next meeting will be on Tuesday 14 June 2022, also at the Visitor Information Centre.