Ever curious, energetic, people-focussed collaborator Melissa Brown, CEO of the Australian Business Events Association - our Visitor Economy Profile

Where are you from? Born and raised mainly in Sydney with a 7-year stint in Canberra. I lived overseas for 15 years and now reside in Perth, WA.

How long have you worked in the visitor economy? My first 10 years of my career were in the non-corporate side of the industry. I was at Continental Airlines , Thomas Cook and Galileo ?? before moving to Telstra to start BigPond Travel. I returned to the visitor economy in 2023 in this role at Australian Business Events Association .

What you enjoy most about working in the VE? Definitely the people – passionate, fun, and always striving to create amazing experiences for their clients.

Amusing story? I remember in my Continental Airlines days the story of when flight CO02 (LA-Sydney-Auckland-Sydney-LA) went mechanical in Sydney, and we had the issue of getting the passengers across to New Zealand and others back to Australia. Head office in Houston remarked ‘can’t you just bus them?’?Hopefully there’s more knowledge nowadays as to where Australia and New Zealand are, the great offers they have for visitors (leisure and business), and the fact there’s a sea called the Tasman between us.

What are you looking forward to and why? Our national conference on 10-11 December at ICC Sydney. It will be fantastic to see all our members together and for everyone to get involved in the education, networking and awards. It is such a brilliant community.

THRIVE 2030 has three themes - collaborate, modernise and diversify – can you tell us what you’re doing in these three areas to improve our visitor economy growth, quality and sustainability? There are two aspects of collaboration for us as ABEA – one is to create the community in which to enable the business events industry to collaborate. Although there are many organisations as competitors in business events, they are great at helping each other out and we’d like to assist wherever possible as ultimately both the clients and industry win.

The other area of collaboration is with partners that help drive the visitor economy. We enjoy working with the likes of Tourism Australia and international partners such as UFI, The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry , ICCA , AIPC and others to grow the industry and also attract more business to our shores.

Modernisation is continual and not a set of actions in time. We are always looking at ways to help inform and educate our members, whether that be around sustainability, new laws or technology. Business events clients are also looking for new and exciting immersive experiences and so often that involves new technology or creative thinking so we need to keep ahead of the game.

Diversification is an interesting one because the Australian Business Events Association has come about through amalgamation. We have brought the diverse areas of the business events industry into one group so there is a peak body with one voice. However, in relation to the industry participants and our members we certainly support diversification of offering. There is so much to experience across this great country of ours so if it’s more regional support or fascinating agri-tourism based partner programs, or the inclusion of greater social impact offerings to business events clients, it can only benefit the overall visitor economy.

What’s your best tip, advice, or lesson learned for the visitor economy right now? I think there are currently three important areas of focus for the business events section of the VE – accurate and consistent data collection and analysis so that we can gauge our impact, addressing what the best sustainability actions and approaches are for businesses, and developing ways to incorporate AI to enhance operations. I think the quest for great talent will always be on our agenda.

How are you innovating to account for your workforce challenges?? I believe one of the biggest challenges for the business events industry is the attraction and retention of talent. We are looking at ways to bring great professional development to our members. That includes developing new solutions with partners, sourcing best of class suppliers and ‘tweaking’ content for business events, or even just providing free informative and educative content through our members themselves or the broader visitor economy industry. Our Knowledge Bites, Video Showcases and Speaker Series are very popular and great ways to help inform our industry and support our members to grow.

What essential goes in your suitcase when travelling for business beyond your phone charger? 1. Curiosity – essential for learning more about members’ business and about our great country. 2. Power pack and cord as I’m always running out of juice. 3. Armaforce – I can’t afford to get sick and prevention is better than cure.

Tell us how you work with First Nations’ people and business? We were established in July 2023 and finalised our strategy a few months ago. One of our commitments is to appoint a First Nations Advisor to our Board knowing culture is one of the three pillars of the national sustainability framework. We are also keen to work with First Nations organisations in the business events space and recently met with Tranby Aboriginal Co-operative Ltd. and Welcome to Country to see the great work they do.

What is your dream/recommended location (where, what specifically and why) in Australia for: Such a difficult question when there is so much on offer! But I’ll give it a go.

Hosting a team building event: I’d rely on the professional and expert advice of a PCO for this one. Essential for me would just be laughter and beautiful locally sourced food and wines.

Holiday with family: Being greedy I’d really love to explore more of our islands – Norfolk, Lord Howe, Christmas, Cocos and the jewel, Lizard. It would be scuba and snorkelling heaven.

Sporting or cultural festival: I’d love to get to the double-hitter of LIV and Gather Round. Adelaide have done such a great job of hosting these in the past couple of years.

Experiencing nature and First Nations’ culture: I have had the good fortune of spending many weeks traveling all over WA, in particular The Gibb River Rd and the Canning Stock Route with the latter having some amazing First Nations’ history. As we have the world’s oldest living culture there’s so much more we can do to celebrate our First Nations culture through our national business events and to weave the stories of past and present into our future.

Other: I would like to explore more of regional Australia, especially with our recently purchased Patriot Camper. And one area I’d couple with hiking and some solid local produce ‘testing’ would be Tasmania.

You can connect with Melissa Brown along with our previous VEN profiles including Felicia Mariani (GAICD) CEO of Victoria Tourism Industry Council (VTIC) , Jonathan Kobus, PSM and Kareena Arthy of the ACT Government, Jill Abel of the Australian Cruise Association , Elizabeth Hackett chair of the Australian Adventure Tourism (AAT) Group , Dr Elaine C. L. Yang of Griffith Institute for Tourism , Creative Australia's Adrian Collette , Intrepid Travel 's Brett Mitchell, Accessible Tourism professional Yasmine Gray of GetAboutAble , IVS survey interviewer Erika Schwarz , TGA - Tour Guides Australia (former) President, Leanne Saward , Rugby great, THRIVE 2030 Implementation Advisory Group member Tim Horan , Ecotourism Australia CEO Elissa Keenan ,?NT Visitor Economy Exec Valerie Smith , Founder/Project Lead at the Travel Better Project Emma Pethybridge , SE Asian focused Inbound Tourism Operator Doddy Purwoko, Stone Social Enterprise’s Vanessa Brettell , Vaycayit's Hailey Brown and Lisa McEwan , Hotel Etico Australia 's Co-founder and CEO Andrea Comastri , Australian Amusement, Leisure & Recreation Association Inc. GM Kristy Ahrens , Queensland Airports Limited CEO Amelia Evans , Executive Director of the Zoo and Aquarium Association Australasia Exec Nicola Craddock , Outdoors NSW & ACT CEO Lori Modde , Kangaroo Island Ocean Safari Owner Tony Coppins , Executive Chair, Australian Chamber – Tourism John Hart , Indigenous workforce professional Sharon Ninyette , TAFE business development manager Paula Meyer , TRA tourism survey manager Bode Ten Buuren, regional tourism leader Coralie Bell , accessible tourism operator and advocate James "Buck" McFarlane of Sensory Tourism Australia , international education expert Karyn Kent and Aboriginal tourist operator Juan Walker .

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