INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT UPDATE

Know Your Neighbour is back!

Have you got a new product?

Completed a refurb?

Diversified your business?

Some of our longer-term members may remember the original Know Your Neighbour famil program, which emerged in the wake of COVID. We still regularly hear from members about how valuable those field trips were, in providing the opportunity for inspiration, collaboration, benchmarking, referrals, friendships and, perhaps most importantly, a deeper understanding of the people and passion behind each business.

Over the coming months, we’ll be hosting a series of online sessions in the same vein, showcasing new, upgraded and reinvented tourism product from across southern Tasmania. Each session will feature a maximum of four businesses, and we’ll keep the series running for as long as there’s appetite from both presenters and attendees.

Participating operators will have up to 10 minutes to introduce their business, share what’s new, and give fellow industry operators a better understanding of their product and story, followed by a short Q&A.

For those who don’t feel particularly confident putting together a presentation, don’t panic. We’ll provide simple templates, clear guidelines and plenty of support to make the process easy and approachable.

These sessions will be open to the broader visitor economy network. We’ll promote them across our full industry database, from major tourism operators and agencies through to tourism-adjacent businesses and stakeholders, making this a highly efficient way to raise your profile, build connections and potentially spark your next strategic collaboration.

If you're a financial member of DST, your business fits one or more of the following categories, and you're keen to showcase your business, we’d love to hear from you:

✅ New product or experience
✅ Renovation, redevelopment or refurbishment
✅ New DST member
✅ New ownership or management
✅ New initiative, project or collaboration

Once we have gleaned the level of potential interest, we'll be back in touch with more details.

DST on Tour

We're hitting the road!

As part of our commitment to being visible, accessible and connected to operators in all corners of the southern region, we’ll be taking the office on the road throughout the second half of 2026. These informal sessions will see the DST team set up a pop-up office for a few hours at a time in a different location every few weeks. This will create an easy opportunity for members to drop in for a chat, ask questions, share ideas, raise challenges or simply connect face-to-face over a coffee. No formal agendas, presentations or pressure, just a relaxed way for us to stay connected and ensure we remain grounded in the realities, opportunities and needs of our regional tourism industry.

We kicked off this initiative on at Bruny two weeks ago, and the next two are live on Humanitix now, so you can register your interest and pre-load us with topics and questions. We'll keep you posted about the rest of the sessions as they open for registration.

Want to catch up but can't make the date in your region?

Email us so we can make another plan.

Booking.com

We have been alerted to the changes in Booking.com's terms and conditions, which we understand have elicited concern from some of our members. We have arranged a meeting with Booking.com next Wednesday, 10 June at 9:00am to seek further clarity on behalf of our members.

To ensure we can represent member concerns accurately and constructively, we are inviting accommodation operators to send through any specific questions, concerns or examples relating to the new agreement. This may include areas where you are seeking clarification, where the changes may impact your business operations, or where you feel further explanation is needed from Booking.com.

Please send your questions or comments through to us by COB Tuesday 9 June so we can include them in our preparation. We will collate member feedback and use it to guide our advocacy in the meeting.

Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback. We appreciate that changes to major distribution platforms can have significant implications for accommodation businesses, and we want to ensure member concerns are clearly understood and raised directly.