The state’s leading tourism bodies came together on Wednesday to launch two new scholarships to fund tourism representatives to undertake the year-long Tasmanian Leaders Program.  

The tourism scholarship saw Destination Southern Tasmania, Tourism Northern Tasmania, the Cradle Coast Authority, and East Coast Tourism come together to sponsor two recipients. 

East Coast Tourism chief executive Ruth Dowty said the scholarship would especially help smaller businesses to support someone through the program.

“What's been a big barrier to a number of people in the past is that in the tourism industry, there are a lot of very small businesses and it’s an expensive program to participate in,” Ms Dowty said.

‘Without leadership the sector is not going to progress.

“On the East Coast we have a lot of really bright people, but they’re often busy running small businesses, so this is about us helping them.” 

Bruny Island Cheese founder Nick Haddow is an alumni of the program and said the experience and knowledge he gained from it was invaluable.

“One of the greatest assets of the program is that it is so Tasmania-specific,” Mr Haddow said. 

“You come out of it not only having learnt more about leadership and how to apply it to your own business, but also how to apply it in Tasmania.”