Tourism Alliance Victoria held its 6th Annual Tourism Alliance Victoria AGM and Member’s Luncheon on 13 October 2010. Following the success of last year's event, this year's AGM and Luncheon was once again held in regional Victoria at Pettavel Winery near Geelong.
Over 60 delegates heard from the 2009 winner of the Lynette Bergin Fellowship, Merran Fyfe, from the Flagstaff Hill Precinct. Merran’s project took her on a study tour of England and Greece where she visited a range of operators, both private and government, and learnt about the long term future of tourism communities in sensitive environmental areas.
This provided her with an opportunity to gain a better understanding of the driving factors that have enabled the operators to create unique yet extremely diverse products, while maintaining environmental best practice. Through the fellowship she was also able to attend the Sustainable Tourism Conference in Greece which exposed her to a world of academic study in the field. Members of Tourism Alliance can download Merran's full report from the Member Only section of our website.
Matt Noble, Chair of Tourism Alliance also presented Roger Grant and Fred Herbert with life membership of Tourism Alliance for their long service on the Board and their contribution to the industry.
Earlier at the AGM, Chairman, Matt Noble provided attendees with a brief overview of Tourism Alliance activities over the last year. The Board election results were also announced. The newly elected Tourism Alliance Victoria board is:
· Matt Noble, Australian Wine Tour Company – Chair (re-elected)
· Roger Grant, (re-elected) Geelong Otway Tourism (re-elected)
· Kiff Saunders, Global Ballooning (elected)
· Sue O’Brien, Chateau Yering Historic House Hotel
· Terry Robinson, Destination Gippsland
· Chris Buckingham, Destination Melbourne
· Penny Wilson, Chair, Young Tourism Network (Observer)
· Tom Smith, Tourism Victoria (Observer)
A feature of the lunch was also the announcement of the 6th Lynette Bergin Tourism Fellowship receipient.
Lynette Bergin Tourism Fellowship
This year the Lynette Bergin Tourism Fellowship was awarded to Megan Peacock from Melbourne Aquarium.
This project will allow Megan to conduct a two week case study to investigate the Indian Market. She hopes to undertake work placements with the National Tourism Organisation, Tourism Australia and Tourism Victoria in Mumbai, India for 2-3 days each. She also plans to visit wholesale and retail agencies in the two key source cities of Mumbai and Delhi. She will also arrange to meet with some of their past clients who have travelled to Australia and Victoria to gain a perceptive of their experience and feedback.
The project will allow Megan to gain a greater understanding, appreciation and awareness of the Indian culture. She will also have increased her tourism knowledge and abilities in conducting individual sales calls.
If you did not know Lynette, you can view a short tribute to her put together by some of her industry colleagues - Click here to view this tribute
Megan is picture here with Kevin Shinners
Click here to see a copy of the 2010
Tourism Alliance Annual Report
