Childers TAG #1

It was wonderful to start May with a coffee catch up in Childers (at Insane Caffeine) with several community members for our first official Childers Tourism Advisory Group (TAG) meeting.

A sincere thank you to Cr Trevor, Rhys Kummerow, Scott Steadman, Teena Mammino, Marianne Lethbridge, Matt Roberts and Kate Giles for coming along to share thoughts and ideas with Ellie Tonkin (BT’s Marketing Manager) and myself. 

The concept of the TAG is to provide an organised way for us to connect with our industry and for businesses to connect with us.  We’re all busy.  We’re all working hard to survive, and I can see that we’re all doing the best we can with the resources that we have.  But we don’t know what we don’t know…..there’s bound to be so many different ways we can work more effectively together if we make the time to communicate better. So, the TAG is all about coming together with a common purpose, working towards the greater good for our collective communities and broader region.

Some of you will remember, we’ve had these groups before…maybe around 7-10 years ago, and they were a great way to connect more closely with what’s happening and to engage businesses more in our activity.  But they are only as strong as the energy put into them and turning up to share and contribute.  

After we caught up with everyone’s wellbeing, it was great to jump straight into what the Childers community needs and how best to support. It was clear that COVID has served up different experiences for different businesses, with some busier than ever, and others in survival mode.  A resounding message was that the business community needs the support to come together and to find ways for businesses to leverage off the work that Bundaberg Tourism is doing for the region.    

It was suggested that Bundaberg Tourism could work to facilitate a coming together of interested members of the Childers Chamber of Commerce, the Experience Childers group and other businesses to create a more cohesive way of working together…..maybe a dual membership offering, some co-operative marketing activity, collective strategic planning for the future.  So as an action, BT will explore how we can deliver on this over the next 3 months, with support from BRC.

 We reminisced on previous group ‘famils’, where front-of-house staff and community members, along with Visitor Information Centre volunteers enjoyed local familiarisation itineraries to get to know all of the visitor experiences in and around Childers.  These are a great way to educate people on what’s available in your own backyard, so this can then be communicated to visitors ‘over the counter’ or in the street.  Whilst Bundaberg Tourism has a year-round famil program operated by the Visitor Information Centres all throughout the region, we all agreed that a dedicated Childers famil would be worthwhile for the collective group to work towards within the next 6 months.

The group identified a potential map upgrade in the park, re-skinning of an old billboard and brainstormed ideas for other useful visitor signage and ways to collaborate for destination success.  

Whilst we didn’t even touch on the mechanics of the TAG terms of reference, or official members of the group, overall, the conversation was productive, and encouraging to feel the motivation from those present to work together to make a difference for the greater good.

Ellie our Marketing Manager and I drove back to the office feeling pumped at the opportunity for a more focused engagement with Childers businesses and community members in our work at Bundaberg Tourism. 

If you’re interested in attending the next Childers Tourism Advisory Group meeting – please express your interest This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you want to check out how we’re talking about Childers on our destination website – jump online to our website here. Remember, we rely on feedback and input from Childers businesses to create all of our content, so if you see an error or something amazing you think we should include – let us know!