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ABOUT
RAY SPERRING our FOUNDER
Ray
originated from the country and came to reside on the Gold Coast in 1953.
One of his first jobs was working as a waiter and cocktail mixer for the
Broadbeach Lennons Hotel when it was first built, then he worked for Brian
Fitzgibbons' Southport Hotel which was ultimately demolished to make way
for the Sundale Shopping Centre. Moving on he joined Reg Ansett's team
on Hayman Island as a waiter before returning to the Gold Coast to open
a Pet shop and Aquarium at Nobbys Beach with a large public display of
marine life in a separate building for Alex Griffiths at his Currumbin
Bird Sanctuary, Large aquariums in the Chevron Hotel, Surfers Paradise
Beer Garden, Burnie Elsie's Tiki Village Beachcomber, and Stan Elson's
Grand Hotel etc were his speciality
In 1962 he conducted and organised the "Twist Caberets"
at the Southport Hotel . Then Ray hired an old fishing boat to take tourists
over to South Stradbroke Island, everyone stood on the deck for the trip,
Ray would teach the guests to "aquaplane" behind the boat, he
also got into lots of trouble from the Motel owners for knocking on doors
of rooms to sell tickets to South Straddie for ten shillings which gave
the guests a BBQ steak on arrival using an old iron plate which was hidden
in the bush for the purpose. In the evenings, Ray was a professional Photographer
for the Surfers Paradise Beer Garden, and the Chevron Hotel, also he played
the drums at The Blue Room Night Club in Surfers Paradise.
In
1978 Ray gained support from Brian Calvert Manager at the Gold Coast Visitors
Bureau to sponsor his efforts to organise a Marathon Race from Sundale
Corner to Greenmount Beach at Coolangatta. He also organised the race
to be broken up into a four section relay for the schools to compete in.
Sir Bruce Small supported Ray, and started the race and also rode his
push-bike for the initial section of the race. There were over 350 competitors
for this inaugural race which was picked up the following year by "Superfast"
film lab, followed by the Rotary Club the following year: The Marathon
went on to become a major multi-national tourism attraction for the Gold
Coast. and now gives the Gold Coast International Media coverage.
Ray
Sperring, with a background of sales and marketing in tourism for 35 years,
realised that every town needed colored brochure maps and special fashion
shirts and ladies garments to promote their assets to the outside world.
And most small country towns had little funds set aside for this type
of promotion. - To fill this funding void, Ray gained business support
and valuable sponsors to fund development, and the Air Line TAA gave Ray
unlimited free travel all over Australia to produce these unique promotions
over a 7 year period. To finalise each unique design Ray worked closely
with each region'sTourism Association and local Shire Council . The Media
Radio, TV and Press in each Town gave Ray enormous support..
From
1978 - Ray, with his friend and very talented artist John Beamish, designed
and produced special "post-card" photographic tourism promotional
designs on fashion garments . It was his idea to put all of the regions
unique assets, attractions, flora and fauna into the design. It was an
era long before "Computers" and these designs had to be hand-painted
then special paper prints were made to print on a range of garments for
many Towns and Regions in Australia including - Gold Coast, Canberra,
Woollongong, Darwin, Cairns, Townsville, Mount Isa, Mackay, Rockhampton
and Capricorn Coast, Sunshine Coast, Maryborough, Harvey Bay and Hobart
To manufacture the range of tourism promotional garments needed, Ray set
up a factory employing over 20 people at Molendinar on the Gold Coast.
Many sporting teams, business groups, and Tourism Delegates donned the
shirts to visit international venues and functions which created enormous
media interest where ever they went. In particular this helped to put
the Gold Coast on the map as a premier holiday destination. Locally, Gold
Coast business, wore the shirts with the staff from Airlines, Taxis, Post
Office, Banks, and Media. 4GG Radio adopted these special shirts as their
corporate uniform.
Ray's
first Mini T Map that he designed in 1995 was for a little known town
in mid South West Queensland, 'Biggenden' followed by Buderim on the Sunshine
Coast, Glasshouse Mountains, Nambour, Tin Can Bay, Rainbow Beach, Cooroy,
and Tewantin in the Sunshine Coast of Queensland. Ipswich, Yeppoon
and Capricorn Coast, Then Kyogle, Casino, Lismore, Nimbin, Ballina, Byron
Bay, Yamba, Iluka, Grafton and Alstonville in Northern New South Wales
Tweed Coast, Tweed Heads Murwillumbah, Beaudesert to Boonah, and Gold
Coast region..
Since
1995, many towns have used these very popular colored brochure maps as
a promotional tool to increase their regional tourism profile and market
share.
Ray
is the first marketing entrepreneur in the world to produce a 'Map Brochure'
to be placed into all regions of the Country with licensed 'Franchises'
to maintain an updated reprinted edition each year. This has enabled a
reciprocal network of distribution points to be constantly increased affording
the advertising patrons to benefit by such a wide net outside their base
region.
The
'Mini T Maps', and 'Aussie Mini Maps' have now gained a data base that
is vitally important and essential for a viable, and user friendly World
Wide Web Site that can offer a TOTAL menu of information for both the
local trade and the Travel and Tourism Industry, being linked to Local
Government Agencies.
Since
1998, Ray has been developing one of the biggest Holiday Booking Engine
for the Gold Coast and South East Queensland Regions, maintaining a ranking
level in the top ten since its inception as www.goldcoastregion.com. Ray
has taken over 4000 colored photographs for this internet site to promote
the Attractions, Flora and Fauna, Environs, and Accommodation venues.
With
his vast local knowledge and Tourism promotional projects over the last
50 years, his expertise and talent in this Industry is hard to beat and
he is still very active in the Tourism Industry organising unique promotional
programs. Ray's latest innovation is to rally together over 200
holiday venues to produce a "Holiday Accommodation Co-operative"
Using the internet as the marketing tool to allow the small independent
operators to enjoy the same level of exposure as the large multi owned
Accommodation groups. This new Co-operative will hold a high level
in the web rankings and provide a wealth of information to the public
and a large number of bookings at a much lower cost with a much higher
yield for the Apartment Owners. This will be the first Co-operative to
promote Tourism in the World.
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