As a dedicated and passionate tourism and local government professional, Joel has extensive experience spanning 12 years in roles in Victoria’s Goldfields region as Manager Tourism, Events and Culture at Central Goldfields Shire Council, and as the current Coordinator Visitor Economy at City of Ballarat in Victoria. To accompany this local government experience, Joel spent 7 years as a board member of Bendigo Regional Tourism Board up until 2019, where he moved for his new role at the other bookend of the Goldfields, in Ballarat.

Joel has driven and delivered strategic projects that have included but not limited to the Ballarat Traveller Experience Plan, Ballarat Visitor Economy Strategy, Bendigo Region Destination Management Plan, Central Goldfields Tourism and Events Strategy, along with various Regional Brand Personality Blueprints and Visitor Servicing strategies.

Lori has had a diverse career in community and economic development for over 25 years. From Regional Marketing Manager at Tourism NSW, Community and Economic Development Manager at a Local Government Authority through to Senior Manager of Place Activation and Strategy at Sydney Olympic Park Authority.

In the past 15 years through her business, Lorick Management, she has held roles such as Event Manager of the NSW Tourism Awards, Marketing Manager of New England North West Tourism and CEO of Outback NSE Tourism, Hills Hawkesbury Tourism and South Coast Tourism. Through her business she now holds the role of Project Manager for Sturt’s Steps in Outback NSW, CEO of Outdoors NSW and General Manager of Visitor Economy Development.

Hi, I’m Hamish, CEO at Smarter Tourism Technology and founder of Booking Aggregator.  I love tech,  it fascinates, amazes, sometimes frustrates and occasionally terrifies me.  I have spent over 20 years working in a variety of roles in the tech industry.  For the past 7 years my focus has been primarily on Travel and tourism. 

When I started Smarter Tourism Technology it was with the aim of helping my clients make their technology work harder, so that they don’t have to.  From booking platform setup and integrations to off grid public Wi-Fi this remains our goal.

With a career spent entirely in tourism and hospitality, I'm passionate about all things tourism, especially what drives the path to purchase, and the end result: the visitor experience.

My career spans operational and marketing roles across destinations in Australia’s Northern Territory, The Flinders Ranges SA, The Kimberley WA, Tasmania, QLD Islands, and The Daintree QLD. For the last 9 years I’ve had the pleasure of representing Gippsland in Victoria’s east as the marketing lead for Destination Gippsland.

At Destination Gippsland I’ve developed skills in AI, digital marketing, as well as grant writing and governance, working across six local government areas for the not for profit regional tourism board. I have extensive experience in crisis management marketing, destination and product branding, brand campaigns and analytics. I love data, especially visitor sentiment analysis.

Previous roles as Creative Marketing Manager for Territory Discoveries, a travel wholesale operation and as Director of Sales at Voyages Indigenous Tourism Australia provided invaluable skill development across the distribution and commercial aspects of the travel and tourism industry.

I have represented Gippsland on the board of Business Events Victoria, and am the current Chair of Sydney-Melbourne Touring.

During my time at Destination Gippsland we have steered the region to greater awareness through the development of a multi-award winning website, and experienced strong growth across social media channels, through PR activity and launched a consumer newsletter.

During my tenure, we have won Gold at the Victorian and Australian Tourism Award for Destination Marketing, 2021. We also won the Australian Marketing Institute award for brand revitalisation in 2022 for Gippslands’ All Kinds of Wonder destination brand.

Kelly Hensley is an experienced tourism professional with more than 20 years in regional destinations, industry development and program delivery. As Operations Manager at Outback Queensland Tourism Association, she leads whole-of-region projects in destination planning, marketing and agritourism, working with councils, industry and government to align local needs with state and national priorities. She previously spent 12 years with Tourism and Events Queensland managing the ATDW and has held senior roles in resort operations and regional marketing.

With over 25 years’ experience in the travel industry, Kate Shilling is on a mission to generate economic growth in regional Australia through the development, distribution and delivery of innovative tourism experiences to local visitors as well as to travellers from further afield.

Kate’s CV includes leadership roles at Flight Centre (in Australia and the USA), Tourism NT, Territory Discoveries, NRMA Travel, Qantas Holidays, Helloworld and Australian Traveller Media. Currently the Executive Officer of Ultimate Winery Experiences Australia (UWEA), Kate is the founder of Family History Holidays, an Ambassador for Australian Regional Tourism, and recently stepped down as the Chair of Destination Riverina Murray after 5 years on the Board.

Kate launched Straightforward Tourism Solutions in March 2017 and has recently worked on a range of side projects including establishing a Dinosaur Tourism Collective in outback Queensland and assessing ag-tourism grant funding applications for the Tasmanian Tourism Innovation Program.

With many STOs and RTOs currently launching agritourism strategies, taking farm tourism forward in a practical way is a particular area of focus for Kate in 2324! Discussions about the different ways to connect emerging and existing agritourism operators, collectively driving positive commercial outcomes community by community are underway!

Kate is a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and on the Advisory Board of The Sigmund Project, travel and tourism’s first digital not-for-profit, dedicated to innovation and collaboration and open to anyone who has a great idea to advance the global tourism industry.