Industry Development Consultant, Tourism Victoria

Stuart Toplis has considerable travel and tourism industry experience (24 years), particularly in the areas of regional, ecotourism and sustainable tourism and holds a Doctor of Philosophy, specialising in sustainable tourism.

Stuart is currently employed by Tourism Victoria in the role of Industry Development Consultant.  He has responsibility for a number of matters, including sustainable tourism, tourism signing, tourism health and safety and crisis management/communications.  Stuart has been responsible for the development of innovative industry support products such as the Talking Up Tourism toolkit, Open for Business guide, Crisis Communications Handbook for Regional and Local Tourism as well as the Sustainability in Tourism module of the Tourism Excellence program.

Prior to this position, Stuart was employed by two leading membership-based organisations, Geelong Otway Tourism and the Australian Conservation Foundation.  The later saw him work on a number of important and innovative areas in the Australian Ecotourism Industry such as undertaking pioneering research into the employment potential of the industry and playing a major part in the development of the EcoCertification Programme.

Stuart is currently chair of the National Tourism Signing Reference Group, a sub-committee of the Australian Standing Committee on Tourism and was previously national chair of the EcoCertification Program’s Assessors Panel.