Juliane grew up in rural Austria near the Slovenian border in the 80’s and 90’s and the mums in the village were tracking their kids’ activities and whereabouts by checking where all the bikes were. Usually stacked next to each other near the local playground or in between the trees at the edge of the forest, where the kids built forts pretending to be pirates and princesses.
Juliane’s home town is beautifully nestled within a small region in South-East Styria who by adopting a regional umbrella brand in the early 90’s has managed to invigorate an unknown, bleak and low-income border region with little future prospects for young people into a leading tourism destination with a thriving local economy. The locals nowadays are proud of their cultural values and heritage and identify themselves with the brand – this enthusiasm is present in everyday life and the cause for innovation and the genuine authenticity felt by visitors. To have witnessed such a successful and sustainable regional development movement first-hand is what fueled Juliane’s fire and passion for destination development over the years.
Juliane has a degree from the Austrian IMC University of Applied Sciences Krems in Export-Oriented Management with focus on international law, logistics and marketing. Her international studies and internships had her travel to study and live in Russia, Australia and the USA throughout the early 2000’s. One of the life-changing moments at university was meeting her now-husband and business partner Martin Wisata, who studied Tourism and Leisure Management at the same university. In 2003, as graduates, they both moved to Australia and Juliane started her career in the manufacturing, corporate sales and consumer retail industries in Sydney.
As a young Marketing Officer she gained thorough insights into B2B marketing and key accounts management in the food manufacturing industry, which included travels to regional and country towns, facilitating marketing and production training for consumer food producers. Juliane still cherishes this time as not only did it infinitely broaden her ‘Australian’ active vocabulary, but because it meant exploring this beautiful country and gaining valuable insights into big manufacturing operations but also small and medium-sized businesses and the important role they play in local communities.
Juliane’s career also included stepping up into an Executive Marketing role for a major food industry non-profit organisation, where she was in charge of facilitating the development an annual marketing strategy and rationale based on major consumer usage we well as an attitude study with the outcome that the market consumption was successfully increased. She gained and strengthened her consumer marketing and strategic branding skills as part of the core executive team who launched a start-up business within one of the major retailers in Australia, by managing the strategic marketing planning process and controlling the marketing budget of the new division to launch ten new retail stores in the Sydney and Melbourne metropolitan areas in 2008 and 2009. Juliane implemented an in-store mystery shopper program and was in charge of the concept design and implementation of a new website portal, review and re-launch to suit additional stores and increased customer database.
Both being engulfed in intense corporate environments, Juliane and Martin escaped into nature whenever they could, exploring their new home in Australia. Both Austrian, the forests and woodlands drew them in and soon they ventured out on two new mountain bikes – they could not (and still can’t) resist the call of the trails. Destiny would have it that they met a passionate mountain biker from Venezuela on a train from Sydney to the Blue Mountains and bonded over a jar of potato salad and took up an invite for a ride together – they slipped into a trail-obsessed mountain bike riding group of friends from all over the world and for the next few years would go on exploring each and every trail and mountain bike network they could find in and around Sydney and Canberra, religiously taking the ‘commute’ on Sydney’s Military Road to Manly Dam and Oxford Falls almost every weekend.
Soon they found the racing bug and competed with local mountain bike clubs and at cross-country events – during such a race, Martin was hit by an idea to put his tourism background into action. Together Juliane and Martin Wisata founded Rocky Trail Entertainment Pty Ltd in 2008 after a two-year research and business planning phase. Since then they have organised close to 300 events and say that they still love that they can help cyclists discover how much fun it is to not only to ride but to race their mountain bikes out on rocky trails.
Since 2012 Juliane and Martin Wisata have been sharing their experiences in strategic marketing and tourism management as lecturers of “Entrepreneurship” in the Tourism and Leisure Management Faculty at the IMC University of Applied Science at its campuses in Krems/Austria, Baku/Azerbaijan and Sanya/China. As part of Rocky Trail Entertainment, Juliane also manages a Communications Division to support key international cycling event clients with the development and execution of strategic PR and media relations, copywriting and social media consulting. For a major client she has secured and managed major local council and state event funding streams.
Rocky Trail Entertainment has delivered a wide variety of mountain biking events, including cross-country endurance, downhill, four-cross, dual slalom and launched the enduro-style of racing in Australia in 2012, which has evolved into the fastest-growing gravity racing series in Australia. In recent years, Rocky Trail have specialised in delivering competitive events for the amateur mountain biking and cycling market and the business is expanding into Queensland and Victoria in 2020. The COVID-19 crisis of that year presented a major disruption to those expansion plans. With two new highly experienced Event Managers on board, the business is still thriving. The team at Rocky Trail Entertainment all share a passion for cycling and mountain biking and combine several decades worth of experiences in events management, tourism and leisure management as well as strategic marketing campaign development and implementation.
Rocky Trail Entertainment has created a strong community of riders who feel connected through the memorable experiences the business creates for them at the events.
We are so proud that we have been able to promote a healthy lifestyle and that our company keeps evolving with our community of riders, supporters and crew.
Juliane Wisata
Rocky Trail Entertainment is now the only private mountain bike events promoter in Australia who runs events across the entire annual calendar and in four states NSW, VIC and QLD and the ACT. As such the business provides a powerful promotional platform to sponsors and a huge variety of events covering cross-country marathon and lap races, gravity and superflow enduro events for a wide range of cyclists.
Juliane and Martin are both still are passionate mountain bikers and whilst Martin will often take his road bike out for a training ride or a spin around the local lake, he manages a team of racers with whom he competes at national and international cycling events together. Since becoming a mum, Juliane has acquired a new appreciation and love for trail running – she has been working on implementing a trail running element in her women’s only ‘Diamonds in the Dirt’ event.
With Rocky Trail Entertainment moving into its second decade in business, Juliane and Martin never stop exploring and still have many ideas and opportunities that they know will turn into amazing experiences for Australian cyclists and trail enthusiasts. As a Director of Rocky Trail Destination, Juliane is passionate about regional destination and sustainable tourism development in Australia and keen to activate her global business and social network to develop exciting concepts for clients to not only increase visitation with a wide variety of active and eco-tourism seekers, but also to support regions to nurture existing and attract new residents to build stronger and thriving communities.
With their preschooler son Cosmo Juliane and Martin are currently based on the NSW Central Coast.
Juliane Wisata
Founder, Director