‘We didn’t have a lot of money’: New tourism boss reveals she never went on holiday as a child
From growing up in Mt Isa to selling Queensland to the world, Patricia O’Callaghan is something of a poster girl for the modern career woman.
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Growing up in the dusty outpost of Mount Isa, the furthest Patricia O’Callaghan ever travelled was to an abandoned uranium mine outside town. Now, she’s selling Queensland to the world.
It’s been an extraordinary journey for O’Callaghan, who has just chalked up a year as the CEO of Tourism and Events Queensland, the main agency in charge of promoting the state’s tourism charms across the country and around the globe.
She’s become something of a poster girl for the modern career woman, holding a succession of high-profile jobs across Queensland while juggling motherhood, a long-distance relationship and remaining strongly connected to the little country town where it all began.
Coming out of the coronavirus pandemic, last year was frenetic for O’Callaghan, 40, who has been on dozens of flights around the state, the country and overseas, including three trips to China, which was Queensland’s biggest tourism partner before the emergence of a strange new virus in Wuhan brought global travel to a shuddering halt in early 2020. She moved to Brisbane last month after calling the Gold Coast home for the past three years.
You’d probably expect a lot of travel for someone working in the travel industry, but it is a world away from a childhood spent in the Isa where her dad Michael had worked as a miner in the old Mary Kathleen uranium mine an hour out of the town she was born in, and that was as far as O’Callaghan went.
“We had probably a very humble upbringing growing up, so we didn’t have a lot of money,” she says.
“We never had a family holiday. Dad used to take us out to Mary K all the time, just to show us where he lived and where the post office was.
“They were probably his fondest memories in his entire life, living out there.”
Closed decades ago, the site has enjoyed a new lease of life in the social media age, thanks largely to the stunning blue lagoon in the old uranium mine pit which makes for incredible pictures on Instagram. There’s no fish there, though, and even birdlife stays away.
“We were taught from a very young age, we do not swim in there,” O’Callaghan says.
Her parents met in the Philippines in 1981 before Michael was able to convince Efrenia to move to Australia – and the work camp at the Mary Kathleen mine, before it closed in 1982. They then moved into Mount Isa and started building their family, with baby Patricia arriving soon after.
Mount Isa has a rich and proud sporting legacy, from the likes of golf legend Greg Norman to tennis great Pat Rafter and footballers Scott Prince (rugby league), Simon Black and Charlie Cameron (both AFL).
O’Callaghan did not add to that legacy.
“No, definitely not sporty,” she laughs.
“Probably more academic than anything. Mum was very big on education.
“Being a female in the Philippines and growing up she was quite poor over there
as well. You could only get to a certain level and after that you needed money to continue studies. So, coming over here, I think Australia was a country of opportunity.
“I think for her, our future really relied on us getting an education, so that’s where my head was at from the moment I hit preschool.”
But it wasn’t all schoolbooks and homework.
O’Callaghan had a keen sense of adventure and her family was embraced by the Isa’s surprisingly strong Filipino community.
“I remember myself and my two brothers (younger siblings Shane and Michael) would just ride and explore and you’d get up in the morning and you’d come back at night and as long as you came home and had a feed in between, Mum knew we were alive and well.
“The Filipino community was very big there as well, so I think that community … we were all one big family out there.
“We were always at each other’s houses, we were always eating – Filipinos love food, so you know, sharing together and celebrating together.”
That community was an enormous support for the family after Michael, suffering chronic arthritis, had to quit his life as a miner and Efrenia became the main breadwinner.
He eventually died battling dementia in 2018 at the age of 78. “Just due to health, he wasn’t able to work, so it was really Mum that was the main income source,” O’Callaghan says.
“She was a cleaner and yeah, it was, it was pretty tough growing up, but we always made it work. Those (Filipina) women really supported each other coming through because a lot of them were learning English in Australia, learning our ways and, they were a really big part of our lives.
“I’m still very close to a lot of them from out there.”
O’Callaghan graduated from Mount Isa High School (now Spinifex College) in 2000. University beckoned – but not straight away.
“I spent 12 months as a checkout chick (at the Food For Less supermarket) saving money to go to uni because I couldn’t really afford to go straight away,” O’Callaghan recalls.
The following year she enrolled at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, taking a business degree majoring in marketing and public relations.
“I wanted to be successful and I felt like it was going to be something to do with business,” she says.
“I just wanted to be in a position where you didn’t have to worry about money coming in, pay-to-pay, like Mum and Dad who had worked every day just to help us get through the week.
“I just wanted to be in a place where we were comfortable, but hopefully successful as well.”
Just the second time she had ever been out of Isa (she had competed in a Tournament of Minds in Brisbane while at school), O’Callaghan was at once in awe of the big new world, but also incredibly homesick.
A trip down to the Gold Coast was the first time she’d ever been to the beach and she saw the sights of the city, but deep down she was still a country girl who missed her mum.
“It was really hard for me. I was very homesick … but Mum just wouldn’t accept that I’d come home until I finished and she really pushed me just to keep going.”
She thought about quitting – regularly.
“Especially when I’d go home for the holidays,” she says.
“I used to bus it from Mount Isa down to Brizzy.”
She graduated in 2004 before returning to Isa and a job as an account manager at radio station 4LM. Months later, she became a mum to son Keanau – now 18 – and moved through a number of jobs before a four-year stint at the Mount Isa chamber of commerce.
It was a Townsville Enterprise board member who ultimately suggested she apply for a job at Townsville Enterprise, an economic and tourism body responsible for promoting the North Queensland city.
“I wasn’t going to, but he just said, ‘You know, what have you got to lose?’” O’Callaghan recalls.
“I think I always knew that to really take advantage of my career, I probably did need to one day leave, but I had a young boy, all the family was there, so I didn’t think I would leave so soon.”
Her partner (now husband) Jeremy encouraged her to go for it, so she applied.
She got the job, starting as Townsville Enterprise’s general manager of tourism and events at the end of 2011.
Within four years she was CEO – just as noises started being made about Townsville needing a new footy stadium. Most league fans remember Johnathan Thurston on stage after the Cowboys’ 2015 NRL Grand Final win, proclaiming that North Queensland “deserved a new stadium”.
What most people wouldn’t have known was the concerted campaign being run in the background by a number of different bodies, including Townsville Enterprise.
Months later, then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull delivered final funding for the stadium. “It was really exciting,” O’Callaghan says.
“The collaboration between a lot of entities was great and now to see it thriving … Elton John opened it, Pink is coming, it’s hosted State of Origin … it’s delivering what we all dreamt it would. And on top of that, it’s really delivering urban renewal as well.”
Despite the challenges (husband Jeremy was still working in Mount Isa and young Keanau often found himself playing in the office corner during meetings or late nights at work), it was a rewarding job and an exciting time. And then along came Covid.
The lockdowns, border closures and vaccine mandates affected almost every aspect of our lives, but if one industry was affected more than any other during the ban on travel, it was the travel industry.
How could you convince people to visit your region or your attraction when they weren’t allowed to leave their state, town or, for a while, even their own house?
“It was really hard,” O’Callaghan says.
“There were definitely a lot of people on the phone, families losing their livelihoods overnight. It was a really heartbreaking time to see what was happening there.
“And I think the industry just wanted someone to represent them and be a voice for what they were experiencing.”
And then, while most people were hunkering down or trying to ride out the storm, O’Callaghan was encouraged to apply for an opening as CEO of Destination Gold Coast, the tourism body in charge of Australia’s glitzy holiday playground.
But in the middle of a pandemic?
“I’d been at TE (Townsville Enterprise) for nine years and I loved every minute of it, and I loved being a part of that community,” she says.
“I never thought I’d leave the north, but I suppose I do love a challenge.
“I remember someone saying the Gold Coast has got so much opportunity in front of it – it’s a multibillion-dollar industry, but it was on its knees. And I just thought, ‘In crisis comes opportunities.’
“I got down to the Gold Coast and we just had to work really hard to keep the industry alive during a historically challenging time.
“I really felt like I was in the right place at the right time so I think, if anything, it just made me more determined to help these operators through and if that was being a voice for them, that was what we were gunna do.”
Often appearing at media conferences next to politicians answering curly questions or showing articulate empathy and compassion during the pandemic, O’Callaghan quickly impressed good judges and it was a surprise to almost no one (except herself) when she was anointed to replace retiring TEQ boss Leanne Coddington last year.
“I’d been in the role at Destination Gold Coast for less than 18 months at this stage (when Coddington announced her decision to step down at the end of 2022), so I had in no way considered applying for the TEQ role at all,” she recalls.
“I’ve always tried to have good people around me, and my mentors sort of said: ‘Look, it’s a job of a lifetime. What’s the worst that can happen? They can say no. And you’re still in a dream job on the Gold Coast.’
“I just didn’t think the time was right, I felt like I needed to give more time to the Gold Coast, but that was just the way it all happened.”
She started her new post in earnest, vowing to visit each of the state’s 13 RTOs (regional tourism organisations) in her first 100 days on the job, as well as making several trips overseas as more of the world reopened for travel.
Queensland’s tourism sector weathered the Covid storm better than any other Australian state, as low case numbers and fewer lockdowns gave Queenslanders the chance to travel more freely – at least within the state.
A number of state government incentives and voucher schemes also encouraged people to take holidays with the result being that some regions of the state actually experienced record visitor numbers during the greatest challenge of the 21st century.
Maintaining such high levels with travel patterns gradually returning to pre-Covid levels will be the challenge, but O’Callaghan is confident Queensland is in good shape.
“We’ve had 24 months of record OVE (overnight visitor expenditure) and visitation but we are certainly not taking it for granted,” she says.
“The reality is that there is uncertainty ahead as the world rebalances.
“So I think, for us, it’s acknowledging we are in a solid place now, but continuing to try and work hard and build for the future.
“Domestically, we have fully recovered but, from an international level, we’re still only just under 85 per cent of our pre-Covid numbers and that last 15 per cent is really hard to rebuild.
“We’ve had good growth back from our traditional markets – the US has come back, it has come back strongly, New Zealand certainly has as the Kiwis have rediscovered Queensland.
“But I think looking at new markets like India will provide a really solid foundation for our future. And we’ve never had direct flights to India. It is the fifth largest economy at the moment.
“Vietnam is a growing and emerging market and economy as well, so we are looking at it from a tourism point of view to say, ‘Well, how can we leverage this?’
“We need to be really thinking big, thinking bold, and thinking differently and I think setting the foundations now will really set us up for that golden decade ahead that everyone’s talking about.”
The “golden decade”, headlined by the state’s turn at hosting the 2032 Olympics, has been seen by some as a magic carpet ride where rivers of gold are automatically going to flow Queensland’s way.
O’Callaghan appreciates the amazing opportunity presented by the Games, but it is no lay-down misere.
“It’s a competitive landscape internationally, the competition for the tourist is fierce,” she says.
“I think everyone opens up their social media and can see all the marketing that’s happening across the world.
“The cost of living at the moment is eating into the travel space as well, but I think if you look at the long term, I think Queensland’s in a really good space.
“So I think our natural landscapes, our First Nations culture and the lead-up to the Olympic and Paralympic Games … we can use events as a massive platform to tell those stories as well, I think we’re in a good place.” There is no bigger event than the Olympic Games, but O’Callaghan believes there are other opportunities for Queensland in the events space.
“Our events calendar is really strong in Queensland already, but I think there is an opportunity to use our events to also attract big international visitation,” she says.
“We’ve got a big bowl of ambitions around our events calendar and we know one international visitor will spend 74 per cent more than our domestic visitors.”
She points to the 2025 British and Irish Lions rugby tour, which will bring up to 30,000 thirsty Pommy football fans to our shores for a Test match and warm-up games. The following year will see a similar number of Brits for The Ashes, but O’Callaghan believes there are untapped resources in some unheralded niches which could deliver similar returns.
She has just returned from India and there is always more travel on the horizon.
It’s a different world to the one in Mount Isa where a 17-year-old O’Callaghan spent a gap year scanning frozen peas at the supermarket wondering where life would take her.
“I probably would never have dreamt I was in this position,” she says.
“But I think, as well, it’s probably why I never take anything for granted. And also have never forgotten where I’ve come from.”
She even thinks, in no small irony, that a childhood devoid of holidays may have helped her in a career spent encouraging others to travel.
“My first holiday was in my late teens and I think my experience of never having a holiday growing up has given me an appreciation, passion and love for what a holiday can mean to someone and to a family,” she says.
“Those feelings have helped me understand the raw motivations of what drives holiday decision-making and my general love for travel.
“I will always be grateful I am in probably the best job in the world.’’
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