Alpine Standards To AI Search And Everything Between

AI is quickly becoming the first place people look for answers, and that shift is about to change how customers find your outdoor business and how your team makes decisions. We unpack what that means for outdoor operators, educators, and land managers across NSW and the ACT, while also covering the immediate, practical updates you need for the months ahead. If you’ve felt the pace of change rising across compliance, marketing, and workforce issues, this briefing is designed to help you regain clarity. 

We walk through major industry and safety items, including the new snow activities guidance note for alpine regions and the timeline for the Australian Adventure Activity Standards (AAAS) draft, consultation, and implementation. We also talk standards access and due diligence, including the consolidated outdoor industry standard set, and why engaging early with the knowledge, skills, and experience work can prevent nasty surprises when drafts land. On the safety side, we share the progress on the snorkeling good practice guide review and why maritime requirements may influence final recommendations. 

From there, we shift into capability building and business readiness: a guiding qualification survey to strengthen pathways into adventure guiding, committee work on trail bike and mountain bike advocacy, and key event dates including the outdoor learning conference, masterclass, and the inaugural NSW ACT Outdoor Industry Awards. We also flag operational changes many businesses can’t ignore, like Super Pay Day timing from July 1 and the end of credit card surcharges from October 1, plus the instant asset write-off deadline. 

We close with a clear-eyed look at generative AI, agentic AI, and AI agents, then the governance that must sit underneath them: privacy, consumer law accuracy, anti-discrimination, workplace law, and cybersecurity. Subscribe for weekly updates, share this with a colleague who needs it, and leave a review with one question you want answered next.

Transcript

Welcome And Purpose Of Forum

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Running.

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Welcome to the Outdoors New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory, weekly Outdoor Industry Connect and Share Forum. Where ideas thrive, collaborations spark, and our industry comes together to grow. Let's connect, share, and make an impact. This episode is recorded live with our professional outdoor friends and provided post-event as a resource for the outdoor industry.

Acknowledgement Of Country And Community

Snow Season Guidance And AAAS Timeline

Standards Access And Compliance Updates

Skills Evidence And Industry Engagement

Snorkeling Safety Guide And Maritime Rules

Guiding Qualification Survey And Pathways

Committee Updates Trail And Mountain Biking

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Good morning everyone. Welcome to another Connect and Share with Outdoors New South Wales and ACT for episode 12 of season four into May, the first of May. So as we get into all the news, I'd love to acknowledge the traditional owners and the lands on which we all come from today and pay my respects to elders, past, present, and emerging. And looking forward to doing more with connecting with country and partnership with our First Nations people. So big news. I wanted to first congratulate uh Claire and Ginny in the birth of Finn. So we're welcoming Finn to the Outdoors family. And uh yeah, all is going well there. So on behalf of Outdoors New South Wales and ACT, congratulations to Claire and Ginny. Okay, no CA update for everyone. So the Outdoor Council of Australia has approved the snow activities guidance note, which will be released probably later today for all of our alpine regions to look at for this coming alpine season. It will be a guidance note until next year when we hope to liaise with the industry quite closely on making sure it becomes a good practice guide and part of the framework of the AAAS. Also, a big welcome to Snow Resorts Australia who join the OCA as a member as of uh this week. So uh congratulations on being accepted and also nominating to be a member of the Outdoor Council of Australia. And it's great to bring the Alpine aspect into all advocacy and uh and needs when it comes to the outdoor industry. The AAAS is certainly on track uh to be released in June in draft. Um, that will enable all of the industry to have a look at it um with a uh a lens to see what will be the effect on their business with that AAAS uh review, and then final comments will be taken over July and August for it to be released uh for implementation in September. So uh I know there's lots and lots of meetings in the next uh couple of weeks, it which is finalizing some of the uh the specialist experts and uh getting that content. No. So um I look forward to seeing all of that. Now, this is a reminder from OCA that the standard set is now available. So there's 35 uh standards, including uh some of the in international standards, including the benefit risk assessment standard, um, all in one set. So no longer do you have to pay a couple of hundred dollars per standard uh to get access to what's relevant for your needs, you can actually buy the outdoor industry standard set. All 35 standards are now available for the member price of 600 and just may as well say$650, a few cents less. Uh, and that will enable you to really do those due diligence checks on where you sit in compliance with Australian standards. If you do want the mobile version only, you can do that for only$121. So now our standards are more accessible than ever before. Now the AAAS review update, um, just a quick couple of um other um pieces is the knowledge, skills, and experience piece. Now, if you uh have these in your diary, the monthly updates is incredibly important to get your head around where some of these changes are already happening. Um, the last thing we want is for you to be caught out in July with what is in the drafts. Uh, we really do need the industry to engage at this very crucial time. So we've had a group look at that knowledge, skills, and experience piece. As you might remember, we um we had a bit of a dilemma when we started this review because it was concurrent with the VET system review, which is our certificate three, four, and diploma in outdoor leadership. And um, ironically, when they looked at the the VET system, they said, right, what is your industry guide as what you need for this qualification? When we did start the AAAS, it actually pointed to the certificate three and certificate four as its guidance. So we ended up with this vortex of who was recommending who for the best of industry practice. We knew that we needed to solve that. So this came into the knowledge, skills and experience piece, which has now been done and in draft and put in now into all of the expert groups for consideration. So if you want to know more of this, I really urge you to get involved in the next monthly meeting which is being held to understand what that looks like and what it um might indicate for you as uh as leaders in the outdoors. Now, the snorkeling good practice guide, we've done a call out. Uh, if you're a member, you may have received a text from Outdoors New South Wales just asking who is using the snorkeling um good practice guide or who is doing snorkeling activities. We've now got a great group uh which we're liaising with in relation to the good practice guide. The need on that was basically that we had very little interaction, um, yet we've identified that this is probably one of the most uh um important GPGs to look at based on the incident rate. So we want to make sure that it is the best uh guide for our industry. Uh, we are now in the midst of having those discussions and seeing where this good practice guide sits in relative to maritime requirements. Uh, in some states and territories, maritime might put requirements above and beyond what we recommend in the good practice guide. So, this call-out is looking at that and seeing where we land for the recommendations as the AAAS review comes out. Um, another call-out uh for some training qualifications, and this one relates to the guiding qualifications. Now, some of you might have staff that have gone through the guiding qualification and then come through the outdoor leadership qualification, or vice versa. And so this is a uh a qualification that is very uh connected to our space. It is also connected in the way we've probably got a massive opportunity here by getting involved in this review and encouraging some more content that relates to the outdoor guiding space or adventure space where we might have more career pathways come out as a highly taken up qualification. So at the moment, there's a survey out around what we'd like to see in this guiding qualification. Um, so I urge anyone that sees this as an opportunity, like we do, in getting more people into adventure guiding, to have your say in this survey. It will certainly help the expert group as they start looking at the qualification and what will be required in through any revisions that they make. So that QR code will take you to that survey. And as I say, even if you just say that we'd like to see some more transition between outdoor leadership and of course the guiding course, uh, I urge you to get involved in that. I wanted to give you a bit of a committee update. So if you are aware of the operations here at Outdoors New South Wales and ACT, we do have quite a few committees that get involved in some topics and uh spend a bit of time as volunteers in guiding where outdoors New South Wales and ACT needs to go in each of those spaces. So the first one I wanted to update you on is the trial bike committee. Now we are about to release the local government toolkit for trial bike riding. That will be on the 28th of May. And the reason why it's the 28th of May is because we're going to be attending the local government visitor economy conference. So we'll be able to present this to the councils in how they can look at opportunities for trial bike riding. Now, some of the findings that we got from the uh the survey that led to this document was very enlightening in the fact that the spend of a trial bike rider in a local community was 78% more than an average tourist to that local government area. So uh it is a very lucrative opportunity for councils to be involved and start promoting the opportunities uh for trial bike riding in their in their council area, hence why the toolkit. So big thank you to the trial bike committee uh for all of their work on this guide, and uh it's been printed as we speak. And that was meant to be a photo of it, but it's not coming up. Mountain bike committee. So the mountain bike committee, we've done uh the symposium, we've created a manifesto, we're discussing around what how we actually now make this manifesto uh start its actions in the space of the mountain biking area. But there is a lot going on in e-bikes. Um, and I've had an hour meeting this morning with Bicycle Industries Australia uh to look at all the different states and territory uh boundaries and what they're doing in legislation. There's a lot that we need to get involved in from an advocacy sense. Um I won't go into depth into this uh at our Connect and Share today. We might have a different forum on this, but to give you an idea, we've got some Queensland legislation that's coming in that's gonna be quite um problematic and detrimental to our space. So we need to get involved uh in that one from an OCA perspective and and uh and outdoors Queensland will certainly be involved. In uh Victoria, there's some new legislation again that's going to be coming in. Uh again, that's gonna make some very hard journeys for our sector. But in New South Wales, we are looking at an age limit, and uh we also need to plug ourselves into that advocacy to make sure that um that will work for our outdoor operators, and particularly our rail trails and our hirers that exist um across New South Wales where families get involved and uh get the families outdoors and active. So, yes, a lot more on that to come. Um, and then we have our outdoor leader committee, which is our outdoor guides, um, and we are promoting the career opportunity of outdoor guides. So we've got a video we're compiling, we've got some amazing footage from our uh our committee that we are putting together into a promotional video. So we hope that the industry will uh help us in supporting and getting that out so we get more guides into our space and start working on filling that gap that we have uh right now. And the outdoor learning committee, this is our educators. This is the one where we have everyone from nature play through to primary school through to high school, and uh the learning committee have now finalized the outdoor learning conference program. Now, if you remember, this is on the 17th and 18th of July in Jervis Bay. Tickets are now on sale, um, but here is a snapshot of the program for you. Oops, um, which hasn't come up, but we will get to that a little bit later. But it does give you a really good snapshot of all the different issues that are happening across the outdoor learning uh area. We will be having the Department of Education coming along. Uh, we have got some specialist um areas, including our primary school, our high school, and our NH Play area, and some amazing presenters. So hopefully, we can all see you there at the outdoor learning conference in Jervis Bay. Our other committees. So, we do have a registered training organization and VET forum, and uh, in this forum, we're talking a lot about the promotion of getting out the trainee subsidy. We're finding that employers are still not uh knowing about this subsidy because we are on the skill shortage list. The key with this forum is to maintain our entry into that shortage list and now get access to a lot more people that may consider the outdoors for their occupation. And our land manager forum. So, this is a great opportunity where we get all the land managers and the and the water managers together and discuss things together, share ideas and uh opportunities as well as problems. We are looking at how we support this group in the impact of the AAAS review and how it connects to their own policies, their own licensing and conditions that they put on operators on their land. Okay, so let's move on to some of those land um areas. And the first one is the National Parks and Wildlife. Do you have the Bald Rock and Banu Banu National Park Plan and Management on exhibition? The changes that are on this plan of management relate to the outdoor uh recreation conservation and cultural values as we step into a co-ownership of the local Aboriginal land councils in that area. Uh, definitely it is supporting our activities, um, and it is certainly supporting some future recreation development as well. But we do need to have a look at it because it uh is looking at how commercial operators uh really need to be clear about what they're offering, whether it's uh recreational cultural interpretation, and how then, of course, they they liaise with the uh the local Aboriginal council in that area. So uh good opportunity if you're in that area to have a look at the planner management. Any submissions on this draft amendment need to be lodged before the 5th of June, and that's 5 p.m. on the 5th of June. So if you're in that area, please um yes, jump in and have your say. Maybe also copy us in so we can uh support the industry in what needs to be done. Crown Lance. We had a great meeting with Crown Lance beyond our our forum uh this week, and it was relating to We Jasper and the situation that uh exists there, where one of the caves is is definitely still closed for access, and that is Dip Cave. But we are calling for all users of WeJasper to get in touch. We're going to be having a meeting about this particular area. We want to help Crown Lands in understanding what is actually happening in the caves and what the capacity of each of the caves is, what they're suitable for, the markets and uh and various aspects. That way we can work together with Crown Lands to maintain access and management. Now, Reflections holiday parks is the uh the management of the camping facility, but all of the caves and the management of the caves rests with Crown Lands. So we certainly want to work with Crown Lands on this and uh yes, get more involved uh to support them and uh that way we maintain that access. So please get involved if you do use We Jasper. The Snow Summit uh is on this week, the 5th and 6th of May. So if it is something that you would like to go to, there is some tickets still available. You can scan that QR code. The full program is now on the website, so you'll see a good depth and breadth of uh who will be represented. And uh, as I say, it's good to have Snow Resorts Australia as part of the Outdoor Council of Australia now.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Something I see a lot in the outdoor industry is people stepping into leadership roles without actually being shown how to lead. They're capable, they care, but they're often figuring it out as they go. And that's where confidence drops, decision making gets harder, and things start to feel a bit uncertain. Because leadership isn't just a title, it is a skill set. That's why we created the Pinnacle Leadership Programme. To give people the structure, mentorship, and practical tools to step into the leadership with a bit more clarity and direction. If that sounds like where you're at, reach out, have a chat, and hopefully we can help you head in the right direction with your leadership journey. Starting August 2026.

Outdoor Learning Conference And VET Forums

Parks Plans And Crown Lands Access Issues

Leadership Program Applications And Support

SPEAKER_00 17:18

Thanks, Kai. I needed a break, I needed a bit of drink of water. So I was going to step in and tell us a little bit more about the Pinnacle Leadership Program. So Cohort 3 is now open for applications. As Kai said, it doesn't start till August, but it's really important if you've got someone that is trying to start off their leadership journey and would like to be involved, make sure that you tell them that the applications are now open. Fuel shortages still continues as we watch what's happening overseas, and uh the Australian Regional Tourism Organization has been doing a great campaign to get people aware of how important regions are when it comes to visitation and people going out and uh being part of the outdoors. So we've certainly got involved and uh supporting this campaign. Now, obviously, we don't want to take fuel that needs to be used by our emergency services and and uh and needs of transport and so forth, but what we are asking is that people remember the importance that visitation has in regions and to pledge that they will come on a regional journey or keep their bookings as much as possible at this time. So we understand we've all got to manage what's happening in the space right now, but um, yeah, this is a great awareness campaign about how important um tourism, education, recreation is in our regional areas, and uh yes, we love people to stay connected. We talked about the changes coming up from the ATO. Certainly, Super Pay Day is uh the first of July, so anyone who gets paid super needs to be paid the day they get paid for their employee wage as of the first of July. So for businesses, make sure you're equipped for your cash flow requirements uh when it comes to Super Pay Day. From the 1st of October, businesses can no longer charge credit card surcharges. This is because the RBA have said to banks they are not to charge the credit card surcharges. So, as businesses and uh through our fair trading laws, we cannot pass on a credit card charge if we are not charged it ourselves. That's why that law has come in. So please get ready for that. Make sure all of your checkout facilities or your your charging facilities don't have that credit card surcharge from the 1st of October this year. Now, the other thing to remind small businesses of is the 20,000 instant asset write-off. So this is still in place up until the 30th of June. So if there is something you want to buy, um remember that this could be a tax write-off for you for this financial year. So whether it's uh equipment, tools, vehicles, um, mobile phones, laptops, you name it, if it is an asset that you wish to buy, remember that uh that is going to fall into the instant write-off, which um exists up until the 30th of June this year. Now, the Jobs and Skills Australia have done a uh a great little pathway data set. This is a great opportunity for any of the students to work out what they need to do to get to a certain uh pathway in what they want to do in work, and vice versa. Um, there are a few tweaks that we would like to see in this data set. So if you have a look at it from your perspective, I'd love your feedback and uh incorporate that into ours. Does it say what you would like it to say as far as its career pathway opportunities? And um, yes, we'll feed that back to Human Ability and Through Jobs and Skills Australia. So um good new tool, uh, certainly in promoting more careers in our space. Now, the dirt jump facility planning guidelines are now out, courtesy of Blue Sky Trails. Now, this webinar that they're putting on on the 6th of May will give a little bit more insight into that uh dirt jump facility planning. So if you are around at midday on the 6th of May, you can certainly register for no cost and find out a little bit more about that practical tool that will assist any land manager in addressing risk and liability as well as design class classification, uh, maintenance regimes, right up to even some stewardship pathways. So uh hopefully we'll see you there. And a reminder we do have the employment guidance uh out, and it is part of your membership pool. Because it is for members only, but it does give a really good idea around your employee responsibilities and what you need to know as an employee, but also employer responsibilities when it comes to the outdoor industry. This guide was started by the outdoor leader committee, and it also has been checked by lawyers and uh and given uh it's once over to make sure it is very accurate. So uh a great tool for all of our industry to look at. Now, as we jump closer to July, we have to remind you that the masterclass bookings are now open. If you've qualified for a discount rate because of your point score, you would receive the would have already received that email. So dig out that email and apply that code on checkout to get your discount. But the masterclass is open to everyone now and it is on the 15th and 16th of July. And the industry awards are that night, followed by the outdoor learning mini conference, which we have already talked about. So, as I say, the tickets are now open for all members for$380, and that will get you two days of solid content that will help you in preparing your sustainability for the next two years. Um, if you go to the website, that image hasn't shown again, there's a problem with my images today, but the actual program is quite jam-packed with real content that's going to make a big difference in business in the next two years. That involves AI, it involves marketing, it involves how Destination New South Wales is working with tourism people, and also Department of Ed is working with our educators. So we have two streams, one for tourism and one for education, and you can decide which one you go to when we do break up into the streams. But the other topic is cyber safety, e-security, um, and some of those really essential things you need to know as a business. So a great opportunity to come and work on your business for two straight days. And then that night, as we say, we have the awards. Now these close on the 10th of May. You have 10 days' notice, people, to get your submission in. Now, this is a good opportunity to benchmark yourself against other operators, celebrate your successes, do a great opportunity to support your staff in what they're doing and reward them by being recognized in these awards. These are the very first New South Wales ACT Outdoor Industry Awards. Um, they're not the first education side, so you'll see that when you actually uh look at the categories, the ones that are asterisk there in a bit more of a shade of grey are our standard education awards, and you apply through the Outdoor Education Australia website for those ones. The reason being if you actually win at state level, you go through to national level for the outdoor education awards. But all of the other um categories you can see there apply through our website. Uh, they'll be judged the same way, but you'll um be re be able to be represented at New South Wales and ACT level for your achievements. So quite a few categories there. Um the guidelines on the dates, as I say, 10th of May, the applications close, judging period is during May, and then we have the People's Choice Voting, which opens on the 15th of May, closes on this on the 15th of June. Uh, the awards evening, 16th of July. And then, as I say, followed by the Outdoor Learning Conference. Um, a great opportunity for all our educators, facilitators to get together, connect, inspire each other, and share uh how you practice outdoor learning. And then we have the National Outdoor Education Conference in Cairns this year, end of September, 26th of September, the 1st of October. Uh, look forward to seeing a lot of our educators up there in September. Now, why is my images not happening? So I wanted to share with you today um what actually was going on with AI. Now, I actually had the opportunity to uh present at an associations forum uh on Tuesday about what we're doing in automation and uh AI. It was a good opportunity to hear what other associations were doing, um, but also to benchmark what we are doing. So I wanted to share with you a bit of the content that was shared at that event. Here we go. My images are working now. I don't know what was going on with my images before. So um, one quick thing I thought I'd share with you, which was a screen that they put up that AI is not new. This plaque that you can see on screen now was the opening of a building in the summer of 1956, where they believed this was the first use of the term artificial intelligence. So it is just something that has evolved, and it's obviously it's evolved very, very quickly as soon as our large language model system came out. Um, but yes, there's a bit of an indicator on it's not really that new. Here's me presenting uh on what we've actually been doing as an association and some of the productivity hacks that we can do with AI. But I thought I'd share with you this that generative AI versus agentic AI, and then of course AI agents, which is all these different things that are tools now that we can have in our businesses, in our lives. It's amazing, even just some of my friends that are using it for their own personal use. Um, you can see as a big, big movement in today's society, and it's becoming the tool that is the search for all your information versus what was Google. So, what impact does this play on our businesses? So, just let's go through those three. Generative AI obviously is using content such as text and image and and things that it can find on the web to train its data collection and then inform the responses that it needs to provide. But agentic, sorry, agentic AI performs tasks autonomously. So if you're part of Claude, for example, Claude now can build you websites using your content and assuming a lot of your knowledge to make decisions on your behalf. So it's actually interacting with your environment, but it's creating solutions for you. Whereas AI agents combine both of those, and they are there to support you in developing complex tasks and become like a staff member in your organization. So if you have a look at all the different functionalities, you can have text AI, which is test recognition, you could do visual AI, so looking at visions and augmented reality, um, chatbots, which we're all very familiar with and how they've evolved over very such a very short period of time, is an interactive AI. Um, of course, functional AI is something around your solutional content uh as well as analytic AI. So analysis and supplying risk assessment data, looking at a whole heap of metrics and making assumptions comes into analytics. But what we need to know as organizations is all of this needs to be governed by the actual legal system in which we work. And this is where a few organizations have been caught out across the world. I'm not too sure if people are familiar with the Canadian Airlines example, uh, one to Google if or ask AI if you're not familiar, but uh, you know, you can be caught out if you have a chat bot that is giving the wrong information. So as we get into these things, the laws that we still need to comply with are, of course, the Privacy Act. So looking at the chatbots or the the uh AI that you're using and making sure that your data is not being leaked if it is data that you don't want to be leaked. So your privacy act is is um certainly needing to be looked at here. Also, consumer law. You know, what is um what are you providing your uh your customers and is it abiding by that customer law? And this is where Canadian Airlines got caught out. Um, anti-discrimination, you know, making sure that we're not allowing our AI systems to uh not comply with what we need in that law, workplace law, of course, where we have to uh look at our own workforce decisions and uh and employer obligations, and then cybersecurity. How does this system handle sensitive data? Um, where does it go? What are the governance requirements around that? And even your own policies, because that's another end of your compliance, is not just the law setting, but also your internal policies if you're a larger organization. So it's not as simple as signing up for your next chatbot, that's for sure. Um, but it's all things that you need to consider, particularly when AI can do so much for particularly small businesses and large businesses, and save certainly a lot of that administrative time that could be better spent elsewhere. And this is something that's courtesy of Tourism Tribe, which uh do some great online training in marketing and so forth. But this is the world we're moving into. We have been in a journey of certainly um awareness and research and consideration and multiple website visitation when we come to deciding what we want to do as visitors, as even people looking at education opportunities, recreation opportunities. We have uh have been in this let's compare model. Now we are resting a lot of our decision largely on what AI is telling us. So it's putting it into what they call a zero-click evolution. When you go into Google, the AI top piece is what people are seeing. Not your website, not your Google search engine optimization, none of that. They're looking at that AI piece. So if your business is not starting to educate in an AI context and putting content in there, you're not gonna be part of that consideration mindset. So some of the tools that currently exist that AI is feeding off might be some things you're involved in, such as the Australian Tourism Data Warehouse is a great one where that is pushing through content into some AI engines. But if you're not in there, you're not gonna be picked up by these AI tools and put into that consideration mindset. So there's a bit of a test taste of what we're going to be covering at our masterclass in July. Um, this is important consideration for all of us if we want more people to interact with our organizations and our business and how that may impact long term. So, on that note, I'm going to close off today's recording and I'm going to spend some time with our colleagues here just finding out what your thoughts are on that and how you interact or don't interact with AI to help inform some of that conversation that's going to occur at our masterclass in July. So, thank you all for joining with us for another Connect and Share on a Friday, and we look forward to seeing you next week.

SPEAKER_02 34:13

Thank you for joining the weekly Outdoor Industry Connect and Share Forum, brought to you by Outdoors, New South Wales and Australian Capital Territory, your peak body for the outdoor industry. Together with our members, we're shaping the future of the outdoors. See you next week for more insights and collaboration.