As CEO of Food and Wine Victoria, Anthea Loucas Bosha is responsible for the renowned Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, Global Table and other related events. Previously Editor-In-Chief of Gourmet Traveller magazine, Loucas Bosha has worked in the food, wine and travel space for over two decades and thrives on telling the stories of Victoria’s producers, chefs, farmers and entrepreneurs or as she puts it “the best food and drink in the world”.
Anthea happily shared some of her thoughts in our Industry minute feature.
What are your current goals?
Celebrating the good and the great of the Victorian food and wine industries and specifically, how can we help support the relief efforts around bushfire recovery. Also, preparing for the 28th Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, this year taking up residence at the Queen Victoria Market.
What are you most proud of?
Fostering a supportive and collaborative working environment in my places of work – and the way the industry and the FWV team pulled together for the #restaurantsforrelief campaign earlier this year. We raised $195K in ten days.
What has been the impact of food tourism to the restaurant industry?
I would flip the question. What’s been the impact of the restaurant industry on tourism? Huge.
Melbourne and Australia have become renown for our food culture. Tourism Australia research has shown that “great food, wine and local cuisine is a major factor influencing holiday decision-making”. The research showed that for people who have never visited Australia only 26 per cent associated Australia with good food and wine. But that number jumps for people who have visited with Australia ranking second across 15 markets for our food and wine experience – behind France and ahead of Italy.
And for visitors from China, USA, France, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and the UK and South Korea, Australia is ranked as the number one destination for food and wine.
What makes the restaurant industry so unique, and how do we protect that?
The pristine produce, the unique Australian style of service which is at once relaxed and knowing, the diversity of cuisines and types of eateries, the integrity that underpins the restaurant experience… where do I stop?
We protect it by celebrating them and continuing to drive customers to them to maintain a robust market.
