By JOLENE OGLE
The Gold Coast may have bikini-clad Meter Maids but Noosa has launched a new tourism initiative to help visitors feel even more welcome.
Noosa is now home to Youth Ambassadors dressed in bright blue shirts who will be on Hastings Street throughout the school holidays to help tourists with any questions they may have about the region.
They are all students from Sunshine Beach High School and have completed the Tourism Noosa Welcome to Noosa program so they are armed with the latest information on the local region.
Local resident Val Smart brought the idea to Noosa MP Glen Elmes as a way of creating mobile assistance for visitors.
“I was thinking of how Gold Coast has the Meter Maids and I thought, what do we have here?” he said. “Why not get our youth involved as Youth Ambassadors.”
The program will run for the next week of the school holidays as a trial period with Youth Ambassadors walking along Hastings Street in groups of twos for their shifts.
Tourism Noosa CEO Damien Massingham said it was all about putting the “rubber on the road” with the students hitting the streets over a two week period.
“This is another way we can enhance the visitors’ stay and having young locals help people is a really positive thing,” he said.
Mr Elmes said it was great to see the students who have “gone out of their way to put in the time” to help visitors.
“The fact the students are volunteering like this is just fantastic,” he said.
