Mount Isa Council Owned Enterprises' new boss is looking forward to a big 2020.
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Roland Schibig started in the role of general manager before Christmas with responsibility for MICOE's three big venues Outback at Isa, the Civic Centre and Buchanan Park.
Mr Schibig moved from Port Douglas to take the new role as part of a restructure of the business and he brings a wealth of tourism-related experience.
"I lived in Port Douglas for six years managing a resort and prior to that I was five years in Tasmania and the last three years of that was tourism manager for Forestry Tasmania," Mr Schibig said.
"That was my first exposure to a council government entity and there I was looking after all the tourist sites in the state."
This is Mr Schibig's first job in the Queensland Outback and he said he was looking forward to the challenge.
"You need to look at it with different eyes," he said.
Mr Schibig expects the MICOE to play a big role in Mount Isa City Council's tourism strategy which will be launched in February.
The Riversleigh Fossil Centre at Outback at Isa will likely play a key role and it is now closed to enable renovations that will start in mid February and is expected to go until late May.
Mr Schibig said the remainder of Outback at Isa including the cafe and the Hard Mines tours remain open for business during the refurb.
"Hard Times will remain a big focus for us as it is one of the avenues we can create revenue," he said.
"We are making it more user friendly a little more hygienic for guests, we are offering hairnets and ear plugs."
Over at the Civic Centre, Mr Schibig said the focus there would be trying to improve on catering.
"There is a kitchen in the Civic Centre but it is not used," he said.
"We want to create one catering division between the Civic Centre and the cafe so we can start doing our own catering in-house."
The last piece in Mr Schibig's jigsaw is the biggest of them all, Buchanan Park.
"It's quite challenging, there is much infrastructure there that needs to be maintained," he said.
"We want to bring it up to a better standard from a technical point of view."
Mr Schibig said they also had a grant to do a masterplan for the Outback at Isa information centre to see what else can be done with the space.
During the temporary closure of the Fossil Centre, daily talks about Riversleigh fossils, conducted by Outback at Isa tour guide Alan Rackham, will be held at 2pm in the room adjacent to the reception desk.
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