Goodwun Consulting

Mr John Richardson

John I. Richardson is a former Assistant General Manager of the Australian Tourist Commission who has been a consultant on tourism projects and marketing since 1981. Assignments have included advice on tourism education projects at Deakin Monash and RMIT Universities. John lectured at Southern Cross University's tourism executive development course from 1996 to 2000. In 1997 he visited India on RMIT's behalf and, in association with Qantas Airways had discussions with leading travel and tourism industry members which led to a successful seminar in Melbourne's Parliament House on the Indian tourism market.

Before turning to tourism, John Richardson had a career in journalism. He was the first staff member of The Age Melbourne to win the Australia-wide Montague Grover Prize for cadet journalists. He was later a correspondent for Australian Associated Press in New York and London, returning to The Age as Foreign Editor. He left journalism to join the Australian Tourist Commission as its manager in New York. He was to stay there for eight years, becoming the ATC's Regional Director, North America, before returning to Australia as Assistant General Manager in charge of world wide operations.

• the organising of a high level seminar on tourism and technology in association with Telstra and Unisys
• a marketing study for Tennis Australia aimed at increasing overseas and Interstate attendance at the Ford Australian Open
• the preparation of a marketing plan for a charter passenger airline
• a trans-Tasman tourism feasibility study for a consortium in Invercargill New Zealand, and
• negotiation of charter rights with Australian and New Zealand governments for a wholesale tour operator.

• tourism adviser on the Geelong Regional Commission's "City by the Bay" project
• performing as a consultant to the developers of the Hyatt hotels in Melbourne and Canberra
• adviser on tourism policy to the Northern Territory Government.

Commissioned studies include a marketing plan for the Northern Territory Tourist Commission, a demand study for Federal Hotels' Queensland casino project and a market study of the Arabian Gulf States for the Australian Tourist Commission.

John Richardson is the author of a series of commisioned books on the Australian  tourism and travel industry.  Titles include: Australian Travel and Tourism: the Economic Perspective (1995) and Marketing Australian Travel and Tourism: Principles and Practice (1996),  A History of Australian Travel and Tourism (1999), published by Hospitality Press.  Another commisioned volume, Australian Travel and Tourism: Theory and Practice in a Changing World  is in progress, scheduled for release in 2002.

John was awarded the Presidential Citation by the American Society of Travel Agents and the Pioneer of the Pacific by the Pacific Asia Travel Association.