Paul Summers is the Director for Japan and Korea at Tourism and Events Queensland. With a career spanning over two decades in tourism and an earlier chapter in global wine and spirits, Paul has built a remarkable life and career abroad. Based in Tokyo for more than 20 years, he continues to  champion Queensland’s presence on the international stage.

Can you describe your first memories of St John’s?

I had never visited a big city like Brisbane before. I spent my childhood in Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory where I was schooled by correspondence and then had six years of boarding school at Rockhampton Grammar School (a town I considered large enough).

In 1986, my family was living in Bamaga so when I arrived at St John’s for O’Week, it was after a two-day journey from the very northern tip of Queensland to the Big Smoke at the state’s southern extremity.

I didn’t know a soul when I arrived. I learnt later that the senior who escorted to my room had called me “timid” (I was!) and I was completely ignorant of what to expect out of O’Week and St John’s.

Are you still connected to the Johnian network?

I made some enduring friendships with many Johnians, when I resided in Patmos and Goodbury, some that I still carry with me to this day. Despite living in Tokyo for the past 21 years, I am in touch with some of my Johnian network.

I was fortunate enough to meet people at College who were blind to my meagre circumstances and my tendency to be a wallflower. These men were present at my wedding to Seiko in Cairns in 1994, have stayed at our house in Tokyo with their families and who, over the years, have continued to extend to me their friendship and have a good laugh when we catch up.

Reflecting on your academic journey, how did the John’s environment support your intellectual curiosity and academic pursuits?

Back then, being a male only college, John’s could be rowdy at times but, underneath the swagger, there was always the understanding that the academic side of it, the study, and the passing of the semester exams, was the crux of College life. Those who thought otherwise soon disappeared. A few Johnians were doing the same subjects as me (I double majored in Japanese and Journalism), and we often got together in informal study groups to support each other.

After graduating, I naively thought I was going to be a foreign correspondent based in Japan; the head of the Journalism faculty, John Birmingham, was my role model as he had worked at the Japanese news agency, Kyodo, and I set my heart on something similar. The reality was a lot grimmer after I graduated – there were very few jobs for journalism graduates. There was also a mature age student from Japan at John’s named Kikawada-san and he was over the moon someone at College could string a sentence together in Japanese, so I conversed with him often (in fact, we met in Tokyo last year for the first time in over 30 years at a UQ Japan Alumni network function).

You've had an amazing career in tourism, how did you end up in Japan? Was there a defining moment or decision that led you there?

I have been working in the Japanese tourism industry, either in Australia or here in Japan, for a total of 25 years. I also took an eight-year detour into the global wine and spirits industry where I worked for Pernod Ricard, the French company which owns multiple brands like Jacobs’ Creek (now sold to Treasury Wines), Ballantine’s, Kahlua, Malibu and Mumm (among others).  I worked as a brand manager for several of these brands and served as the company’s intermediary with Beam Suntory.

The defining moment which led me here was the one-year working holiday I did in 1991, which improved my Japanese spoken and written language skills immensely. I returned to Cairns a year later where I worked for several inbound tour companies catering for the Japanese for over 10 years. That led to a two-year stint at the local tourism bureau which proved to be my springboard to Tourism and Events Queensland in Tokyo in 2004 and I have been here ever since.

The tourism industry has experienced significant change in recent years. How has the landscape of tourism changed for you?

Like Australia, the travel landscape in Japan has undergone a profound change. When I first arrived here, Japanese occupied close to 90% of airline seats to and from Queensland. These days, thanks to the post-pandemic fixation Australians have with Japan, the split is more 70% Australian and 30% Japanese. In 2024, 920,000 Australians visited Japan; a statistic unthinkable twenty years ago.

The Australian love affair with Japan represents a challenge for me in my role to promote Queensland as a leisure destination to the Japanese. We require available seats, seats that are taken by Australians with increasingly little seasonal fluctuation. Moreover, Japanese can be cautious travellers, sensitive to even the smallest of fluctuations in FX rates and a whiff of geo-political turbulence frightens them. Thankfully, to date, Queensland has escaped a lot of the impact seen elsewhere due to the weak Yen and the parts of the state like Cairns are seeing Japanese visitation back to pre-pandemic levels.

Looking back at the start of your journey, what advice would you give to current and future students at St John’s College? What insights or lessons would you share with them to help them make the most of their time at College/University?

Two words - be bold! Don’t worry too much about the future – chances are you might end up doing something completely different to your degree; that’s totally acceptable and part of life’s journey. Overcoming shyness or introverted behaviour is extremely difficult and, looking back, I can think of multiple times when I wish I had been bolder. There is no denying shyness does hold you back socially and, in the classroom, but you will make friends with people at St John’s, and at the University, who will guide you through, who will give you strength, and they’re the ones that matter.