Vale Tony Park, Regional Tourism Ambassador

Australian Regional Tourism is shocked and saddened to hear of the loss of Tony Park of Port Arthur Villas after a brief illness. Tony was one of our inaugural cohort of Regional Tourism Ambassadors.

Tony joined the team of Ambassadors as yet another way of expressing his long held passion for regional tourism – especially tourism in his beloved Tasmania. His work in Tasmania ran from the 90s, where he was foundational in establishing the States’ Tourism Industry Council. Thanks to this he was made a Tourism Champion for the state in 2004.

Australian Regional Tourism Ambassador and Ambassador Board Liaison Carolyn Childs commented ‘When you read Tony’s Ambassador posts, you really felt like you were listening to the voice of the industry. His passion and ability to look at things from a different perspective shone through. For example, his last post on the Hub on balancing the desire to maximise yield whilst taking a longer term perspective goes to the heart of many of regional tourism’s priorities. Typically Tony it took a quirky angle: the fact that tourists were using hire trucks to get around! You can read that post here

ART Executive Officer Lauren Douglass added ‘From all in the regional tourism community, we want to pass on our condolences to his family. Tony’s lively presence and voice will be much missed.’