I just spent the last three days in Long Beach, California at the Queensland Exchange. It’s an event that Tourism Queensland holds every year to get people in the travel industry together and learn more about promoting/selling Queensland. It was very enlightening. I learned a lot about both Queensland and the issues travel agencies face in the current economy. Friday, the day started off with a panel discussing tourism and social media, among other things. The panelists were Stephanie Abrams (Travel Talk Show Host), Rohit Bhargava (Ogilvy 360), John Frazier (Quinn & Company) and Jane Engle (Los Angeles Times). Then we got to meet vendors from Australia. I learned about various hotels, airlines and activities. I wanted to go to Australia before, but now I’m even more anxious eager (correction by CareyD in the comments) to go and experience everything!

One of the best things to come out of the weekend was getting to know six of the other Top 50 candidates. I wish I could meet all of them, but understandably, not everyone was able to make it to Long Beach for the event. These are the candidates that came (in no particular order): Sandi from Connecticut, Melissa from Canada, Hailey from Queensland, Marcella from Canada, Angie from New York, and Mark from Los Angeles. Everyone was very friendly and we had an awesome time hanging out and getting to know each other!

Time and time again, people kept coming up to me asking if each of us candidates had met before this event. I told them no, this was the first time most of us had met. They appeared shocked, and when I questioned the reaction, their response was “well, you all get along so well.” LOL! It’s a great bunch of girls (and Mark), and we all genuinely liked each other.

I did some Qik videos and took a lot of pictures. Here’s a look:

Pictures on SmugMug

Qik | Cape Tribulation
Qik | Hamilton Island (phone died during this stream)
Qik | V Australia
Qik | Hibachi

Sunday, the event was held outdoors on the lawn in front of the Aquarium of the Pacifics. The weather was threatening rain in the morning, but we wound up with extremely harsh winds instead. Everyone was freezing! Lots of Geek Brief viewers came  to hang out, take pictures and learn about Australia. I think they were impressed by the prices on flights! Here are some of the photos:

Cali’s SmugMug Photos
TechFrog’s Photos
TypicalMacUser’s Photos

Video of 6 of us Top 50 Candidates

Now I’m in Los Angeles to do some cool interviews that you’ll see on Geek Brief soon!

Posted in Best Job Blog
5 Comments Posted by Cali Lewis