Six Years to 2032
What Should Tourism Businesses and Marketers Be Doing Now?

Six years can feel like a long time. But building partnerships, developing experiences and growing a business all take time too. Leave it until 2031, and you’ll have missed years of opportunity.

That was my takeaway from The Next Six, Brisbane Economic Development Agency’s recent industry forum at La Boite Theatre. Across presentations covering visitor markets, consumer behaviour, aviation, branding and major events, one message kept surfacing: there’s marketing work we can start now that will shape our future.

While the forum focused on Brisbane’s visitor economy, our clients beyond Brisbane regularly ask us: what can we do to capitalise on Brisbane 2032? Our answer? There’s plenty you can start doing now to strengthen your business and prepare for the opportunities ahead.

Understanding your audience, building partnerships, investing in your team and giving customers reasons to return all take sustained effort. The Games provide a prompt to think about where we want our businesses and destinations to be, and start working towards it.

What could we invest in today that will strengthen our businesses, serve our customers and benefit our communities for years beyond 2032? Here are six ideas I’m taking back to our clients.

1. Know which visitors you’re trying to attract

Tourism Australia’s Rob Dougan offered a useful reminder: different markets bring different opportunities.

A growing market doesn’t automatically make it the right market for every destination or operator. Purpose of travel, spending, length of stay and willingness to explore all matter.

For regional destinations, that last point deserves particular attention. Rob highlighted Germany, France, Scandinavia and Italy as markets with an appetite for exploring beyond gateway cities.

If those visitors are an opportunity for your region, what are you doing to reach them?

We need to get more specific about our audiences:

• What motivates them to travel?
• Which experiences matter most to them?
• What might stop them booking?
• How does our destination or business fit into their wider trip?

Then we need to use those insights to tailor our content. Take an accommodation provider in Toowoomba. When targeting families visiting for the Olympic equestrian events, its messaging might highlight easy access to the venue, family rooms and playgrounds nearby.

When targeting couples planning a food and wine escape, that same provider might highlight its proximity to restaurants and cellar doors.

2. Connect with people and be understood by machines

No surprises that AI made its way into the conversation. Kantar’s Karin Du Chenne explored the need to win with both people and machines.

What stood out for me was the emphasis on human connection and how strong storytelling is more critical than ever. As more content is generated by computers, understanding how people feel becomes even more valuable.

Storytelling gives travellers reasons to care. The person behind a business, a detail that brings a place to life or a shared interest can help someone feel connected before they arrive.

For event marketers, that means going beyond telling people how great the event will be. Show them the community they’ll join, the traditions they’ll take part in and the people they’ll meet.

Then, help them work through the practical details.

Where can they park? Will there be food? Is there a parents’ room? Can they bring water bottles? (As a parent, that last question gets me every time!)

These details might feel minor to an event organiser. To a customer, they can determine whether attending feels manageable. And the same principle applies no matter what your business – answering practical questions can remove uncertainty and make choosing you easier.

If you follow Media Mortar on socials, you’ll know we’ve been talking about making content useful for people and discoverable through AI and search, and we’ve developed workshops to help you do this.

My takeaway is to connect the big story with the small questions. Give people a reason to want the experience, then help them confidently plan it.

3. Visitors don’t organise their holidays around council boundaries

Brisbane Airport’s Ryan Both raised a point that should influence how we plan and collaborate: visitors think in experiences and possibilities.

Our organisational boundaries rarely mean much to someone planning a holiday. Ryan shared an example of a recent ad for Brisbane that Malaysia Airlines did. In the ad, they started with South Bank, then moved to Currumbin, and then onto Tropical Fruit World – which isn’t even in Queensland! You can view the ad here.

For councils and regional tourism organisations, this creates a reason to work together. Nearby destinations can help build a richer trip and give visitors more reasons to stay.

Proximity alone won’t do the work. We need to show people how the experiences connect, how they’ll get there and how much time they’ll need. It means no longer should we be looking at each region as a competitor – we need to start thinking how to be collaborators. Shared itineraries, operator referrals and packages can make extending a visit straightforward.

This thinking applies well beyond Brisbane and certainly isn’t something we need to wait for 2032 to act upon. If someone’s already travelling to a neighbouring region, what could you create together that makes visiting yours a natural next step?

4. Create places and experiences that locals want to return to

Artemus Group’s Luke Fraser shared three lessons from Howard Smith Wharves: create a place for locals, continually innovate and reinvest, and collaborate.

I loved the idea of creating for locals and recognising how that strengthens the visitor experience.

Local customers sustain businesses between major events. They also bring visiting friends and relatives, recommend places and help create the atmosphere visitors enjoy.

Luke encouraged businesses to use the next six years to keep innovating and trying new things. It was a good reminder that standing still won’t move your business forward. This applies to everything from training your staff, to innovating what you offer and how you deliver.

The next six years give us time to test ideas, learn what works and build stronger relationships with our customers. But that progress depends on making a start – and the best time is now.

What could you improve now that would give your customers another reason to return?

5. Tell a consistent story about your destination or business

Building brand recognition takes time and repetition. Often as marketers or people working in the business, we’re the ones who get bored of a story or campaign long before our audience does.

VML’s Andrew Kolb reinforced this through his discussion of brand consistency and taking Brisbane’s story beyond our own backyard. For businesses, that means reinforcing the same core messages, using recognisable visual assets and delivering the experience our marketing promises. Each interaction should build on what people already know about us.

Andrew also flagged the importance of looking at the younger audiences – yes, I’m talking about Gen Z again. They have very different opinions on brands and destinations than older generations, even millennials like myself. It’s a reminder to understand what they already value about our destinations and businesses, rather than assume our own perceptions are shared.

Creators can help bring those perspectives to life, telling stories in ways their audiences recognise and trust. Give them room to interpret the experience while staying true to what your brand stands for.

The question is: how can you make your story relevant to your next customer while remaining recognisable to the people who already know you?

6. Plan for the visit after the event

Have you started planning your post-Games marketing strategy?

That prompt from Michelle Morris of MI Global Partners stayed with me. It raises a useful question for any destination: do we have a plan to encourage people back, or is our strategy focused on attracting new visitors each time?

Building repeat visitation starts with the first experience. Businesses need partnerships, bookable experiences, trained teams and content that helps visitors explore. Destinations need reasons for people to arrive earlier, stay longer and venture further.

Then we need to think about what comes next.

What will someone discover that makes them want to return? How will we stay connected with them? What will we invite them to experience on their next visit?

The events happening now give us opportunities to test that approach and improve well before 2032.

I left The Next Six with a question that feels useful for every business and destination planning ahead:

What do we want to be doing differently six years from now, and what needs to start today?

The answer could be a new partnership, a better visitor experience, a clearer story or a stronger connection with a priority market.

Whatever it is, the work we start now can keep delivering value long after 2032.