Martin grew up in Upper Austria near the German border and could ski before he could walk properly. Spending all his winters exploring ski slopes around Austria and Central Europe together with his parents and as a passionate member of the local boy scouts group, he gained an appreciation for nature and the outdoors from very early on in life. Riding a bike is freedom, he says – all his primary and high school life he would ride his to school and back home every day.
Martin has a degree from the Austrian IMC University of Applied Sciences in Krems in Tourism and Leisure Management with focus on the economics of all tourism sectors, marketing and business management. His international studies and internships had him travel to study and work in Italy, the Carribean and across Austria throughout the early 2000’s. One of the life-changing moments at university was meeting his now-wife Juliane Wisata, who studied Export-Oriented Management there. In 2003, as graduates, they both moved to Australia and Martin started his career as an entrepreneur, launching a web design business for small and medium-sized businesses in Sydney.
As a business owner in the early stages of his working career, Martin quickly picked up the entrepreneurial skill sets and know-how that is required to create a business network. Soon he took the opportunity to work for a Conference Events Management business, which allowed him to broaden on his direct marketing and event organisational skills.
Together with his partner Juliane and a growing circle of outdoor enthusiastic friends from all over the world, Martin enjoyed exploring his new home of Australia. Arriving in Australia with only one suitcase, he had not forgotten to make arrangements to import his mountain bike and again the ‘freedom on two wheels’ led to many travels and regular ‘communtes’ on Sydney’s Military Road to Manly Dam and Oxford Falls almost every weekend.
Soon especially Martin caught the racing bug and together with Juliane he started to compete with local mountain bike clubs and at cross-country events – during one of those early races, Martin was hit by an idea to put his tourism background into action. Whilst enjoying the corporate environment, Martin could never let go of a distinct entrepreneurial mindset. 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, Martin also manages an amateur racing team, which he has been taking to key international cycling stage racing events clients every year.
The little Austrian boy riding his bike to school now holds the record for most Crocodile Trophy stage racing events completed in a row – 10 of them as of the end of 2019. The Crocodile Trophy is the oldest mountain bike stage race in the world and is currently based in Tropical North Queensland. Its eight day stage race takes the competitors on an incredible stage plan through the beautiful landscapes of Tropical North Queensland covering over 700 km and 14,000 vm. This race has become Martin’s greatest love affair with mountain bike racing and the motivation to train and ride and race to get ready for the start line in Cairns every October.
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.
I love that I can line up at a start line alongside ‘my’ Rocky Trail racers.
Martin 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 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.
As a Director of Rocky Trail Destination Martin Wisata combines his tourism and leisure management background with his passion for cycling. He is a very strong project manager with thorough financial and operational skills. His passion is destination management and has become a very active opinion leader for cycling event and trail-based activities, land management and destination development in Australia.
With their preschooler son Cosmo Juliane and Martin are currently based on the NSW Central Coast.
Martin Wisata
Founder, Director