Andrea Gibson Sales Executive for Poseidon and Sailaways’ has just returned from a very successful Domestic Trade Sales Mission. Organized by TTNQ and named ‘Passport to Paradise.’

Andrea joined the team in Brisbane, only six in the mission this year.  Andrea said "I did it last year and there was 14 of us!!"  The mission was made up from Kuranda Village, Reef Magic, Capta group, Hideaway resorts (Dunk and Bedarra Islands) and Travel Train Holidays. 

Andrea said "I was very proud to be the only Port Douglas based product. It is very important to promote our region first before our product and this I believe I achieved".

The domestic trade road show event is the largest domestic trade sales mission for 2010 and gives us the best opportunity to engage and train over 500 consultants and managers from key domestic retail, airline and wholesales teams.

After training at several holiday call centres in Brisbane and a catch up with key product managers, they went off down the coast in 2 Taragos calling in at all towns to catch up and train  the frontline staff in small regional travel agencies.  Each evening a function was held with all local travel agents invited to attend the training workshops.  Each evening, Andrea said their guests had a chance to win a holiday to TTNQ and thanks to Qantas Holidays flights were included in the prize pack.  The prizes are designed to give these agents a chance to come and experience the showcased products personally.

The trip concluded with 2 days in Sydney to hold large training workshops.  Andrea was pleased to report "As from the 1st of April Jetstar announced the doubling of flights between Cairns and Sydney, what a great opportunity to bring the retail sellers up to date with all the latest information on Tropical North Queensland and beautiful Port Douglas!"

She said there was never a dull moment.  On Monday 26th she was off to the Agincourt Ribbon Reefs on Poseidon to be the host for 9 Canadian Travel agents that are not currently selling much of Australia.  Tourism Queensland arranged for them to experience many different trips and the reef with Poseidon and luck was on their side as the skies cleared, the seas calmed and the tide dropped, three fantastic sites.

Some agents tried an Intro dive, some certified dives and the rest snorkeled with me. "I was excited as I finally saw my first gorgeous Cuttle fish".  She also said "Two of the agents could not swim and did not want to go in the water but thanks to our great crew we had them both snorkelling for the first time at all 3 sites, you should have seen their smile!! Another day in the office for me!! They were all very impressed with our region and were looking forward to going home to sell, sell, sell!!"

Andrea will only be home for 2 weeks before the second part of the Road Show mission begins, flying to Melbourne and driving regional Victoria and back again to Sydney.

She was keen to say "Sometimes we might forget how important the domestic market is to our region, but this is part of our commitment as a small family business to be out in the market place promoting our beautiful Port Douglas!!"

Editors Comments: Great job, Well done Andrea and the Poseidon team.  It must be a sign of the times that Poseidon were the sole representatives of Port Douglas.  I hope it was big flag she was waving for us all !