Tourists, tourists everywhere!
In 1988, Australia had the bicentenary celebrations to mark 200 years since the First Fleet arrived in Australia. The World Expo of 1988 (also known as World Expo 88 or Expo 88) was held in Queensland’s capital city, Brisbane.
That year, the theme was ‘Leisure in the Age of Technology’. It was the largest event of the bicentennial celebrations. This, of course, brought in an influx of tourists.
By influx, we mean over 15 million, to be exact!
In case you’re not familiar, Brisbane and the Gold Coast are about 100km apart. That is roughly about an hour’s drive on the current motorway. Assuming there is no congestion on the M1, that is – which, if you are a local, you would know doesn’t always happen. Many of those who visited the Expo would also visit the Gold Coast.
Ken Done, a famous Australian artist designed the bright and colourful theme for the Australia Pavillion. Following the World Expo 88, Ken Done became a partner in our collaboration and together we created the Ken Done Jewellery Collection. This collection brought my wife into the store, and that was how we met.
I guess you could cal our business #matchmaker !
There was also a very popular monorail system which was created specifically for the World Expo 88. It took many passengers around the Expo. Today, one of the trains and some of the tracks from the monorail are used at Sea World and Nara Resort (also known as Sea World Resort)!
From just a small countryside town for retirement, the Gold Coast has transformed into a world famous, tourist hot-spot over these past couple of decades. The Gold Coast soon became particularly more popular in the 1980s for Japanese tourists after the city was named the best honeymoon destination.
I served thousands and thousands of customers during this time – you cannot imagine.
Read more about the 1980s here