Meet your fun and passionate crew
Tourism Tribe is a genuine peer to peer community of tourism operators, industry and digital experts in a supported learning environment.
Tourism Tribe is relentlessly committed to helping tourism businesses stay up-to-date with transformative technology and business opportunities brought by the new traveller. We aim to help businesses to leverage these new opportunities in the most time and cost-effective manner.
The Tourism Tribe platform is built leveraging interconnected free cloud platforms available to anyone, from anywhere, to deliver cost-effective training and the ability for any business, independently of their location, to share best practices without reinventing the wheel.
Liz Ward
Founder & CEO
2 before 10
Fabienne Wintle
Founder & CIO
espresso martini
Despina Karatzias
Chief Navigator & GM
greek coffee
Claire McCollum
Coach & Strategist
fancy green tea
Hannah Conroy
Business Specialist
soy latte
Emily Barry
Digital Marketing Coordinator
iced frappe
Julia Retson
Digital Engineer
chai latte
Ann Reimer
Executive Assistant
latte
Our team in action
In July 2021, we celebrated our sixth year anniversary with a six-month recap of coaching sessions, events, industry workshops, news updates and more!
We are so thankful to everyone who has been part of this journey and all the amazing businesses we have met and had the pleasure of working alongside these past six years. We hope to celebrate another six years helping small tourism businesses navigate the digital world.
Liz Ward
Founder & CEO
Liz is a committed advocate for innovation in marketing and distribution and recognised expert in strategy with more than 20 years experience specialising in travel and tourism.
Liz has pioneered many first-time digital transformation initiatives that have had lasting impacts including starting up the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW) and being its CEO for over ten years.
Liz Ward
Liz is the co-founder of the innovative tourism online learning community, Tourism Tribe, which launched in July 2015 and is already providing online coaching and support to over 1,600 tourism operators around Australia and the world. Tourism Tribe was awarded in the Queensland Tourism Industry Innovation Awards in 2016 and in its inception in the UNWTO Innovation Awards in 2015.
Liz is also is Managing Director of Digital Coaching International – a network of experts who assist businesses through digital transformation of their marketing and operational processes. Liz is able to pull together a team of tourism experts with the relevant, specific experience to meet the clients’ needs.
Recent consulting projects have included:
- Development of an online health check and raking model to benchmark the digital maturity and effectiveness of destinations and tourism business
- Implementation of a digital capability training program across 10 destinations in Queensland
- Digital strategy and capability building program for 300 Northern Territory businesses TourismTribe.com/Digital-Leap
- Development of the Digital Business Scorecard and Training Program for the Department of Digital Economy in Queensland business.qld.gov.au/running-business/it/digital-scorecard
Liz is an experienced speaker, facilitator and trainer and leads her sessions with a philosophy of shared knowledge and collaborative learning. Some of Liz’s speaking commitments have included:
- Keynote at Destination Tweed AGM 2018
- Keynote at the Welcome to the Dry conference in Darwin 2017
- MC for the Australian Chamber of Commerce Mobile-ising Women in Business conference in 2016
- Facilitated Digital Masterclass, Destination Queensland conference 2016
Liz is a Fellow of both the Australian Institute of Company Directors and Australian Institute of Management and holds an Advanced Diploma in Business from University of Southern Queensland.
Liz has been a director on several boards, including Tourism and Events Queensland, Queenslanders Credit Union and presently is on the board of Women Chiefs of Enterprise, Australia. Liz is also President for Women Chiefs of Enterprise, Queensland.
Fabienne Wintle
Founder & CIO
Fabienne (Fabie) is a digital strategist who excels in her field of empowering tourism professionals to make the most of digital technology in their business ventures.
She is an advocate for digital self-sufficiency within businesses and her hands-on approach has enabled thousands of small and large business owners with the tools and knowledge to make a living from Tourism.
Fabienne’s special blend of digital know-how, tourism knowledge, her training and coaching skills, ability to think outside the box and a natural gift for communication make her a sought after consultant, workshop facilitator and speaker in her field.
Fabienne (Fabie) Wintle
Fabienne has developed some of the best performing customer-facing websites and digital coaching programs in the tourism industry. She is also the co-founder of the worldwide digital phenomenon, Tourism Tribe, which has an online community of 1,500 businesses.
Recent projects have included:
- Development of the Tourism Tribe genuine peer to peer online platform
- Development of the Tourism and Events Queensland Social Media Criteria for the Best of Queensland project
- Development of an online health check and raking model to benchmark the digital maturity and effectiveness of destinations and tourism business
- Implementation of a digital capability training program across 10 destinations in Queensland
- Digital strategy and capability building program for 300 Northern Territory businesses http://www.TourismTribe.com/Digital-Leap
- Development of the Digital Business Scorecard and Training Program for the Department of Digital Economy in Queensland www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/it/digital-scorecard
Fabienne holds a Bachelor and Masters in Information & Communication Systems (University of Geneva, Switzerland), a Masters in International Tourism & Hospitality Management (Griffith University, Australia), a Certificate IV in Training & Assessment and a Certificate IV in Small Business Management. She was also awarded Young Achiever of the Year – Queensland Tourism (2010) and received the Griffith University Business School Young Outstanding Alumnus Award (2011).
Fabienne has been a director on several boards, including Queensland Tourism Industry Council and is currently Vice President of Discovery Coast Tourism and Commerce. Fabie is also a Queensland Digital Champion (Queensland government).
Fabie practices what she preaches, living a balanced connected lifestyle in the beachside community of Agnes Water/1770 (Central Queensland), with her head in the digital world and both feet firmly planted on the sandy ground.
Despina Karatzias
Chief Navigator (GM)
Despina is Tourism Tribe's Chief Navigator (AKA our General Manager). Despina brings incredible business expertise to the Tourism Tribe team and our clients. She has started up and managed multiple businesses and brings unsurpassed experience in all aspects of running and growing a tourism business.
As a lover of all things tourism and the small ‘passionate’ business community Despina loves to work with the small to medium business owner or manager who struggles to figure out cost effective ways to maximise and grow their business through digital, social media, distribution and partnership marketing.
When Despi isn't managing, mentoring, hosting a webinar or creating irresistible social media content for clients, she can be found with her family. Despina met her hubby over 20 years ago (two days after she turned eighteen) and their greatest gifts in life have been their three children. She has two daughters and a gorgeous little man.
Despina's love for travel and the Australian tourism industry is her other passion. She loves everything about travel and tourism. Everything! Long haul. Weekend. Overnight. Accommodation. Tours. Attractions. Wineries. You name it. She loves helping these businesses and when she am not helping them she is either planning (or dreaming) about her next holiday.
Julie Proft
Customer Success Executive
Julie is Tourism Tribe’s Customer Success Executive. In any role she’s had in her career, she always views her customer’s successes as HER successes. Julie began her career in Tourism, working in 4 and 5 star hotels, a DMO and theme parks across Melbourne and the Gold Coast and went on to clock up over 10 years in the industry.
Being a bit sporty, Julie skipped across to performance sportswear, managing accounts for high profile sporting bodies and corporate organisations at Australian brand, SCODY.
Then, it was time to try something of her own, Julie co-launched eco-biz, Composta Australia, successfully on-boarding two of Australia’s largest vendors Bunnings and Mitre 10 and growing a healthy social following. It was there that Julie developed her new love, Digital Marketing.
Outside of work Julie is one of those weird people who loves doing half marathons, triathlons and about anything you can throw at her. But the only thing that has her running around right at this moment is her 3 year old, Charli!
Claire McCollum
Coach & Strategist
Claire is Tourism Tribe’s Coach and Digital Strategist. She has extensive experience in the tourism industry working for tour and accommodation operators in guiding and marketing roles and now provides confidence and capability building to tourism operators through training and coaching.
A major part of Claire’s role is to work with clients to develop content marketing strategies, blog updates and social media plans.
Claire worked as a tour guide both Kakadu (8 day tours) and in the Kimberleys for two years. She’s also been wearing the Marketing and Business Manager for Gibson’s Pet Friendly Accommodation for the past 5 years five years where she transformed that business to a fully self-sufficient, online business. Claire migrated the entire operational systems and marketing to digital and cloud-based platforms, driving efficiencies and sales and making the business systems available remotely at any time.
Claire is very well-travelled, both overseas and in Australia and has lived in every state except for South Australia and Tasmania!
Hannah Conroy
Business Support Specialist
Hannah works behind the scenes on a variety of tasks including social media, website copywriting, online training preparation, video editing, graphic design and more.
She ensures Tourism Tribe members and clients have access to all of the products and training that can enable them to push their businesses further.
Hannah has been involved in tourism since 2010 when she started working at a Victorian ski resort where she did four seasons. She worked abroad in tourism and hospitality roles in Japan and Ireland before settling back in Melbourne working for a major hotel in the city centre.
Her experience in a variety of large and small tourism and hospitality environments has given her insight into what it takes to operate a tourism business and what modern travellers look for in a holiday.
Hannah holds a degree in Sociology and has a passion for social and environmental justice; outside of Tourism Tribe she volunteers for the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre
Emily Barry
Marketing & Project Assistant
Emily is Tourism Tribe’s Marketing and Project Assistant. She is currently in her third year at university, studying a Bachelor of Business Marketing. Emily has been working in the hospitality and tourism industry since 2014. Her experience working large-scale events all across Queensland has given her great operational insight into tourism businesses. At Tourism Tribe, Emily’s role is to assist in the development of digital assets for clients and coordinate Tourism Tribe's social media channels.
Emily has a passion for travelling and aims to visit every continent before she turns 30.
Julia Retson
Digital Engineer
Julia works on the technical side of Navii, building the website and our automated marketing system to ensure that customers have a seamless user experience while enjoying what we have to offer.
With her previous experience working in visual effects on major feature films, Julia is no stranger to complicated digital tools and has had many an opportunity to hone her skills in explaining how to use these tools in simple and easily understood English. Julia's also has extensive experience with online learning platforms as she has been both a creator of content, while using progressive teaching methods as a high school teacher, and as a user while completing her online diploma.
Julia has a degree in Aerospace Engineering as well as a graduate diploma in Secondary Education (Mathematics & Physics) and a diploma of Graphic Design.
Originally from Canada, she has travelled extensively throughout Australia, New Zealand, and many other places around the world. She has just recently returned from a year travelling Australia in a caravan with her young family.
