Meet our AI and digital tourism coaches

Liz Ward

Founder and CEO | AI Visibility Strategist

Brisbane, Queensland

“I love to find out the passion and values that my client has for their business…what’s their why? It’s an excellent place to start for building out a plan and developing a marketing strategy that attracts the person who is their ideal customer who can connect with their passions and values.”

With 35 years of digital transformation experience, Liz coaches tourism businesses on how to develop practical, AI-inclusive business strategies. When a traveller asks ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google’s AI Overview where to stay or what to do, Liz’s strategic work is the reason certain businesses appear in those answers while others miss out.

This cutting-edge focus draws on a deep legacy of industry leadership. As the founder and decade-long CEO of the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse (ATDW), Liz built the foundational system that fed every tourism listing in Australia directly to Google. Now, she is applying that same visionary thinking to the AI landscape. She runs workshops that demystify how AI engines select, cite, and recommend destinations, helping operators restructure their digital presence so the machines can find them.

Liz holds an Advanced Diploma in Business Marketing and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (FAICD). She brings a powerful blend of high-level corporate governance, marketing strategy, and technological foresight to the Tourism Tribe community, ensuring modern technology always serves practical business growth.

Areas of expertise

• AI Strategy & Digital Visibility: AI-Inclusive Business Strategies, AI Search Optimisation (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overview), Digital Footprint Restructuring
• Tourism Infrastructure & Legacy: Founder and Former CEO of ATDW, National Digital Transformation Leadership, Enterprise Search Engine Integration
• Governance & Marketing Strategy: Corporate Governance (FAICD), Business Capability Building, Advanced Marketing Strategy, Workshop Facilitation and Coaching
• Media & Thought Leadership: AI enablement speaker, Co-host of the Tourism Tribe Podcast, National President – Women Chiefs of Enterprises International

Fabienne Wintle

Founder and CIO | AI Expert

“From teaching operators how to build their first websites in 2007 to deploying autonomous AI networks today, my mission has always been the same: future-proofing business through real, working technology”

Agnes Water, Queensland

When the first wave of digital adoption hit Australian tourism, nobody else was doing it. In 2007, Fabienne launched Untangle My Web, flying twice a week across every state to deliver face-to-face digital training to operators who didn’t even own a website. Realising they needed a continuous network to survive the digital shift, she built one of Australia’s first online business communities in 2009, laying the foundation for what is now Tourism Tribe.

Fabienne doesn’t teach theory; she builds infrastructure. She has trained thousands of operators across every state and territory, authored the national award-winning ATDW Tourism e-Kit (which achieved over 300,000 downloads), and co-secured a $1.9 million federal grant to scale this tourism training blueprint to all Australian small businesses through Navii.

From broadband and mobile to social and platforms, Fabienne has been in the trenches of every technological shift. When AI arrived, she didn’t commission a report; she built. Within 18 months, she had 50 autonomous AI agents in production running Tourism Tribe’s business operations. Today, she continues to push the absolute limits of applied technology as the founder of Velluto.health, an AI-native medical platform actively deployed with live clinicians and real patients in GP practices.

Beyond code and strategy, Fabienne is an active voice in the business tech landscape. She co-hosts the official Tourism Tribe podcast alongside Liz, bridging the gap between human hospitality and advanced technology, and hosts the newly launched YouTube show, Still Here Next Year, a forward-looking series cutting through the noise to project exactly where business, technology, and AI are heading next.

Holding dual master’s degrees in Tourism (Griffith University, Notable Alumna) and Information & Communication Systems (University of Geneva), she combines deep domain heritage with elite technical execution to architect the future of business.

Areas of expertise

Qualifications: Master in Information & Communication Systems (Geneva), Master in Tourism (Griffith), Cert IV TAE

Applied AI Engineering & Architecture: Production-Ready AI Agent Networks, Anthropic/Claude Code + Codex Implementation, AI-Native Platform Development, Workflow Automation

Digital Pioneering & Scale: 16,000+ Businesses Trained, $1.9M Federal Grant Execution (Navii), Creator of the ATDW Tourism e-Kit, Community Infrastructure Building

Media & Thought Leadership: AI enablement speaker, YouTube Show Host (Still Here Next Year), Co-host of the Tourism Tribe Podcast, VP Discovery Coast Tourism & Commerce, former QTIC Board Director, Advance Queensland Digital Champion

Claire McCollum

Coach and Strategist | GEO Content Specialist

Agnes Water, Queensland

“I love the tourism Industry as most people are working in a dream job they have created for themselves. So I find I meet with such passionate business owners that are really dedicated to delivering excellent customer service and want to provide a quality product.”

Claire specialises in Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO), structuring a tourism business’s digital content so that AI search tools select and recommend it. She understands how systems like ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews decide which businesses to feature, and she uses this insight to help operators stay visible.

Known for her exceptional ability to listen to operators, Claire excels at taking real-world business challenges and designing clear, tailored solutions. Instead of overwhelming businesses with technical jargon, she focuses on practical content plans that operators can easily execute themselves. She guides businesses through essentials like FAQ schema, entity-rich descriptions, and structured data, making their properties and experiences fully machine-readable.

With nine years of experience coaching tourism operators in digital marketing, Claire holds a Bachelor of Applied Science and a Cert IV in Tourism. She works precisely at the intersection of practical problem-solving and AI discoverability, the exact space where digital bookings are won or lost.

Areas of Expertise

Tourism Operations & Automation: ATDW Optimisation, Booking Systems, E-commerce Integration, Business Automation, Zapier, Social Media Scheduling

AI & Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO): AI Implementation, GEO Strategy, Local Search, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Structured Data and Schema, User Experience (UX)

Problem Solving & Content Strategy: Business Problem Diagnostic, Tailored Solution Mapping, Content Planning, Blogging, Lead Magnets, Email Marketing

Digital Presence & Reputation: Google Business Profile, Online Reputation Management, TripAdvisor, Wix, Video Production, YouTube, Canva

LinkedIn

Julia Retson

Operations Manager | AI Automation Engineer

Agnes Water, Queensland

“Julia Retson is Tourism Tribe’s Operations Manager, combining tech smarts with streamlined systems to keep everything running smoothly and support tourism businesses to thrive.”

As Tourism Tribe’s Operations Manager, Julia combines deep tech smarts with streamlined infrastructure to keep everything running flawlessly. Holding a Bachelor of Aerospace Engineering, Julia doesn’t rely on quick fixes or “hacks”, she thinks in robust, scalable systems. She architects the Tribe’s internal AI-powered workflows and oversees our core program designs.
Backed by a Graduate Diploma in Teaching, Julia has a unique ability to translate complex technology into highly efficient, actionable learning for tourism operators. She ensures that even the most advanced digital tools are structured in a way that helps businesses cut through the noise and thrive.

Areas of expertise

AI & Systems Automation: AI Workflows, Claude Code, Software Integration, Google Workspace, Google Sheets

Web & E-Commerce: WordPress, WooCommerce, Website Optimisation

Digital Marketing & CRM: Fluent CRM, HubSpot, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, Mailerlite, Email Marketing, Lead Magnets

Branding & Design: Canva, Brand Asset Management, Video production

Sam Ward

Coach | AI Business Analyst

Brisbane, Queensland

“I love seeing people succeed, particularly when they didn’t think they were capable.”

Sam discovered a passion for coaching through his work with elite athletes in the world of tennis. Sam then switched gears, swapping the racquet for a spreadsheet when he earned his degree in accounting and began working for a large financial organisation and then later became a co-founder of his own business. He is passionate about developing and growing products and processes for start-ups and small businesses. Through his mentoring approach, he elicits business creativity using lean canvas processes to flesh out the economic value of a goal and helping others thrive through coaching and achieving milestones.

Sam coaches operators on the numbers side: business planning, cash flow forecasting, financial modelling, and operational efficiency. His accounting degree means he speaks spreadsheet fluently, and his background in elite sports coaching means he knows how to get people to do the work, not just understand the theory. He helps businesses use AI tools to run scenario planning, identify revenue gaps, and build productivity systems that save hours per week.

Areas of expertise

Business planning, AI, ATDW, Blogging, Business plans, Canva, Cash flow planning, Content planning, Digital transformation, Facebook, Google My Business, Instagram, Local search, Marketing planning, Online reputation management, Search engines, SEO, Social media scheduling, Software, Target market planning, TripAdvisor, Video