CEO UPDATE
There is something special about bringing our industry together, and this year we’re preparing to do it on a bigger scale. Our 2026 Hospitality Tasmania Awards for Excellence will move from the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens to MAC 02 on Hobart’s waterfront, giving us the opportunity to welcome more people and continue growing what has become one of the most important nights on our industry calendar. The Gardens have provided a fantastic backdrop for the Awards over the past three years and we’ve created some great memories there. We’ve also been fortunate with the weather on two of those three occasions – and anyone who has organised a major outdoor event in Tasmania knows you can only push your luck so far. Moving to MAC 02 gives us greater certainty, but just as importantly, it gives us room to grow. Interest in the Awards continues to build each year and we want as many people as possible to be there to celebrate the businesses, operators and people who make our industry what it is. This year’s event on September 30 will be bigger, but the purpose remains the same: recognising excellence, celebrating achievement and giving our industry an opportunity to come together. We were reminded recently just how important those opportunities are with the inaugural Clubs Tasmania Awards. It was fantastic to see the club sector come together for its own night of recognition and celebration, and I want to congratulate Tom Darke and the entire Hospitality Tasmania team who worked incredibly hard to deliver such a successful first event. Most importantly, congratulations to all the finalists and winners, and to everyone who attended and helped make the night what it was. For an inaugural event, the response was outstanding and showed there is a real appetite to recognise the contribution clubs and the people behind them
make across Tasmania.
Clubs hold a particularly important place in our communities, and it is something I have seen firsthand over many years. I’ve been fortunate to be involved with sporting clubs and organisations at different levels, from local through to my time as Chair of the Tasmania JackJumpers and Jewels. The scale might change, but the fundamentals don’t. Clubs bring people together. In many regional communities they are among the places where people regularly connect, volunteer, share experiences and feel part of something bigger than themselves. Their contribution also extends well beyond the clubhouse or sporting field. Clubs are a critical part of the health and wellbeing ecosystem in Tasmania. They give kids a reason to get active, provide opportunities for adults to stay involved in sport and recreation, and create environments where people of all ages can build friendships and maintain social connections. At a time when we are constantly talking about the importance of physical activity, mental wellbeing and stronger communities, clubs are already doing that work every week. Much of it is driven by volunteers who give up their nights, weekends and countless hours behind the scenes simply because they care about their club and their community. The inaugural Clubs Tasmania Awards gave us an opportunity to put some of those people and their achievements in the spotlight. That is ultimately what our awards events are about. Whether it is a volunteer keeping a community club moving, a hospitality professional building their career, or a business continuing to invest and innovate, these are people and organisations worth celebrating. We saw that at our first Clubs Tasmania Awards, and I’m looking forward to seeing it again when our hospitality industry fills MAC 02 in September.
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Tasmanian Hospitality Review August/September Edition
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