Business Development Coaching

Capability BuildingSTO / RTOCB

Jun 14

Written By Cristy Houghton

Experience Gold Coast

Experience Gold Coast (previously called Destination Gold Coast) is the regional tourism organisation for Queensland’s famous Gold Coast and its hinterland. The Gold Coast attracts almost 5 million overnight visitors per year, including over 600,000 international visitors.

Project purpose

To enable more Gold Coast tourism operators to become Best of Queensland Experiences, Experience Gold Coast contracted Jayne Jennings of JJ Strategic Consulting supported by Linda Tillman and Kushla Gale of Tilma Group to deliver free business coaching to its members on Tourism & Events Queensland’s Best of Queensland Experiences Program.

The Best of Queensland Experiences Program assesses Queensland tourism businesses on their ability deliver exceptional experiences, and create positive word of mouth recommendations for Queensland. 

The program assesses businesses on:

Consistent delivery of an exceptional experience based on positive customer reviews
Having a website with secure booking platform
An active and engaging social media presence
Regional tourism organisation membership
Accreditation

Project overview

For six months we provide coaching on these criteria, and where additional time was available, coaching also covered

Website, accessibility and sustainability improvements
Experience enhancements

Project outcomes

JJ Strategic Consulting and Tilma Group mentored 70 businesses, as diverse as a jet boat experience, a whale watching cruise, apartment hotels, events, jet ski-ing, axe throwing, camper hire, a surf school, surf clubs, a golf club, a wildlife park, and many others. Each was provided with a tailored action plan to support becoming or maintaining their status as a Best of Queensland Experience in 2025. They were also provided with other resources, such as best practice websites, social media accounts and review response examples, and relevant funding programs available.

We also delivered a webinar on the program including tips and best practice examples. This was recorded for Experience Gold Coast to share with its members along with a tip sheet and case studies of businesses that demonstrate good practice on the Best of Queensland Experiences Program criteria.

Referee

Judy Quodling
Industry Development Officer
Experience Gold Coast
07 5584 6223
judy.quodling@destinationgoldcoast.com

Ashleigh Barnes
Partnership & Membership Officer
Experience Gold Coast
07 5584 6243
ashleigh.barnes@destinationgoldcoast.com

Cristy Houghton

Cristy's unique career has taken her from country NSW to the city lights of Clarendon Street South Melbourne and back again. With an early career in radio as a copywriter and creative strategist, she is now a Jill of all trades as a graphic designer, website builder, blog writer, video editor, social media manager, marketing strategist and more.

In fact, give her any task and this chick will figure out how to do it! Go on, we dare you!

No, really, we DARE you!!

Cristy has won two Australian Commercial Radio Awards (ACRAs) for Best Ad and Best Sales Promotion, and even has an 'Employee of the Year' certificate with her name on it.

Cristy and her husband James have traveled extensively through Russia, China and South East Asia, and have two fur-babies, Sooty (cat) and Panda (puppy). Cristy loves drinking coffee, meeting people to drink coffee, coffee tasting and coffee flavoured cocktails. She also enjoys road trips, TED Talks and watching cat videos on youtube.

http://www.embarketing.com.au