Operators stretch out summer

Sue Mikkelsen, Danielle McPharlin and Cathy Mitchell at the RACV Noosa resort workshop.

Darryn Smith

UNITING tourism operators and accommodation outlets across the Sunshine Coast was Steve Cooper's goal during a visit to the RACV Noosa resort last week.

The Sunshine Coast Destination Ltd chief, and former chief of Tourism Noosa, welcomed 70 delegates from the Noosa region to a half-day workshop called Conversations with SCDL.

Mr Cooper said his goal was to "unite the industry" - from Caloundra to the hinterland and up to Noosa - to work together to reach combined goals of growing tourism sustainably on the Coast.

"These are very, very tough times for the industry," Mr Cooper said.

"We need a two-way dialogue to understand what's going on."

Mr Cooper said the thinking behind the event was to allow tourism operators and accommodation outlets to learn more about the organisations and find out how they could work together.

"There's a good opportunity here," he said.

"We want to unite our industry and work together to reach our combined goal of growing tourism sustainably on the Sunshine Coast.

"One way of creating unity has been to develop a long overdue regional wide tourism membership program. We invite new and potential members to come along and discover how we can best serve your needs, now and into the future."

"The most important thing for the Coast is to have a loud, consistent voice speaking out for tourism."

Mr Cooper said the immediate focus was on looking at the drive market with a new marketing promotion, the Stretch Out Your Summer campaign.

It would focus on Hervey Bay, Brisbane, Bundaberg, Caboolture and even Gold Coast markets.

Operators - 58 in all - have contributed to the $100,000 campaign, giving it a total value of close to $200,000 including $10,000 worth of prizes on the campaign website.

The Stretch Out project will run through social media sites including Facebook, newspapers, billboards and television advertising.

It is slated to run until the end of March.