Farewell to Karen Stotz: Tasmania's voice in the USA for 27 years

Her achievements speak for themselves. Karen won the Best State Tourism Award for three consecutive years at the North America Corroboree, and in 2011 was awarded the Hall of Fame Industry Recognition Award. She secured consortium partnerships with Signature Travel Network, Travel Leaders Group and Virtuoso, connecting Tasmania to high yielding travel agent networks across North America. She championed relationships with key wholesalers including Travel Answers Group, Swain and Goway, and her persistent, long term work helped land Collette, one of the largest wholesalers in the US, in launching a Tasmania extension this year. She also played a key role in bringing Adventures by Disney to Tasmania in the early days, and has worked closely with Air New Zealand to promote the direct service to Hobart. 

When Karen started in 1999, Tasmania welcomed around 20,000 visitors from the United States. That number has grown to around 51,000. That growth doesn't happen without someone working tirelessly on the ground, building trust and keeping Tasmania front of mind in a crowded market. 

Karen isn't disappearing entirely. She will continue working part time with Tourism Australia as an Aussie Specialist Trainer, which means she'll still be out there flying the Tasmanian flag as part of the broader Australia training program. We wish her well in this next chapter, and she deserves every good thing that comes with it.