Winners and losers in Tourism Australia restructure

Tourism Australia has announced a major restructure which Managing Director Andrew McEvoy says is aimed at boosting consumer marketing, improving online strategy and execution while giving TA a role in finding new investment for Australian tourism infrastructure.

The restructure sees the departure of key executive Richard Beere and strengthens the role of marketing under Nick Baker. Following two recent resignations and the apparent sideways shift of corporate services boss Grant le Loux, Tourism Australia now has three General Manager vacancies.

Mr McEvoy says some of the key changes include:

  • “Our Consumer Marketing team will continue to be headed by Nick Baker and research will become a part of his group. That is to ensure we have the strongest possible understanding of the consumer we need to target and create the right messages to reach them. There will be a real focus on continuing to build our capability in the area of digital marketing and social advocacy;

  • “Our International Operations, currently broken down into East and West, will be renamed Marketing Operations and be headed by Frances Anne Keeler. Business Events will also report through this area to bring this team closer to the corporate end-users they are trying to influence to bring meetings and incentives to Australia. The Operations team’s job will be to bring to life the marketing created by Nick and his team – in a way that works locally in markets around the world.

  • “Our Industry Development team will come up onto executive (formerly reporting into marketing) and be named Destination Development. We will add some expertise in investment attraction while continuing to run our trade events, work to bring Indigenous tourism operators to market and partner with Parks Australia on the National Landscapes initiative.

  • “There will also be some changes in the areas of Corporate Services, Strategy and Corporate Affairs designed to make logical sense and align our structure to the 2020 strategy.

“With this change, some valued colleagues will be leaving us. The best known of whom is Richard Beere who will be leaving Tourism Australia after more than 20 years (over two stints). Richard has been a great servant to the industry and the organisation and I know you will all wish him well in his new endeavours. Richard will be with us until after ATE, so we will have a chance to say a more formal and appropriate goodbye.

“Our head of corporate services Grant le Loux will work on some key projects for Tourism Australia and be replaced in his current role. While Rachel Crowley (Corporate Communications) and Matt Cameron Smith (Industry Development and Trade Marketing) have recently announced their departures from TA for new opportunities.

“These changes create vacancies at the executive level. The roles of General Manager, Corporate Services, General Manager, Destination Development and General Manager, Corporate Affairs and Strategy will be advertised next week and filled in the coming months.”

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