“At the moment, I’m looking for my next career journey…I think I got to a point where I sat inside a larger organisation, which was the Victoria Tourism Industry Council, so my strengths and interests are in the…greater event space for the tourism industry in Victoria,” he told micenet in an exclusive interview.
Porter began at BEV, then known as the Regional Victoria Conference Group, in 2008 and by the time he left he was general manager of BEV as well as chief operations officer of the Victoria Tourism Industry Council, which is charged with delivering BEV’s services.
He has watched the regions grow around Victoria from within the membership-based, industry-led , not-for-profit body dedicated to supporting visitor economy growth beyond Victoria’s capital city.
Porter said government funding for business events in regional Victoria began off the back of the Black Saturday bushfires in 2009, with recognition that encouraging businesses to take their events out into the regions would help them recover from the fires.
“From there we were able to build on that momentum of continually driving the value of business events and I think it’s a bit more of that recognition and understanding of government as well.
“When I first started it was just me, it was half a person,” Porter says.
When he left last month, the team had grown to four plus a couple in sales and business development.
So, is Porter about to be lost to Victoria or to the tourism sector?
“Initially, I’m just going to take some time and I still do love the industry and I do think that I won’t be lost from [it], whether it’s the business events sector or the broader tourism industry. I love it too much,” he says.
Maybe there’s a clue in Porter’s life before BEV: he graduated from university with a Bachelor of Viticultural Science and began his career in tourism with the Australian Wine Tour Company (AWTC).
