Collette has just wrapped up its VIP Travel Forum in Cairns, hosting its top sellers, partners, key travel players and media friends (that’s us!) at Crystalbrook’s Flynn Resort.
Kicking off on Wednesday night with cocktails at Flynn’s Whiskey and Wine bar sponsored by Tourism Ireland, the event was a tropical affair with plenty of time spent lounging by the pool and rubbing shoulders with industry high-flyers.
The conference itself ran for only half a day on Thursday morning, featuring the likes of Virtuoso’s Aussie general manager Fiona Dalton, CEO of the Hunter Travel Group Brett Dann, managing director of the council of Australian Tour Operators (CATO) Brett Jardine and flying in all the way from Rhode Island, Collette’s CEO Dan Sullivan.
Also represented was Rocky Mountaineer, Delta Airlines, TourRadar and Chris Watson Travel, just to name a few.
For those who didn’t go too hard at Tourism Ireland’s cocktail event, there was a morning exercise session with Peter Annis-Brown, owner and founder of ManageHealth and an Esplanade run with Destination Webinar’s Charlie Trevena.
Thursday night also saw attendees dressed up to the nines to attend a special gala dinner to celebrate the event’s theme: “Bounce back and inspire”, with special guests including MP Cairns and Assistant Minister for Tourism Industry Development Michael Healy and Olympic Gold medalist Steven Bradbury, OAM.
The forum officially wrapped up this morning with a delicious breakfast and networking event hosted by Collette’s USA partners, with representatives from Visit Anchorage, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, Montana, Rocky Mountaineer, Utah, Visit USA and Port of Seattle.
“This has been the toughest time in our history. For all of us, because we’re all in this together,” Sullivan said during his welcome speech.
“We’ve been around 104 years, so we’ve been through this. We’ve withstood the Spanish flu, both World Wars, the Iraq War, 9/11, the economic meltdown of ’08 and ’09…
“We came out of everyone those crises and each time we evolved.”
However, for Sullivan, the most important thing coming out of a crisis is coming back together to pick up the pieces.
“We’ve got a lot of great talent that had joined us today and I thank you all from coming from all over Australia,” he added.
“Because it really is about networking and sharing our successes, things that work, that don’t work, how we evolve and how we’re changing.
“And that’s never been more true than right now.”
