Editorial Policy

Who we are

Cooee Tours is a Brisbane-based travel agency that has been operating since 1991. We design and book escorted small-group tours and tailored bespoke holidays across Australia, New Zealand and the world. Our office sits at Level 2, 200 Adelaide Street, in Brisbane (Meanjin), on the lands of the Turrbal and Yuggera/Jagera peoples.

This editorial policy explains how we create the travel content on cooeetours.com.au, what you can rely on, and where our commercial interests sit. Every published page on this site links to this document from its byline, so the reader can check the editorial standard behind any guide they are reading.

Editorial standards

Specialist-written, fact-checked

Travel-guide content — destination guides, route advice, sub-region pages, FAQ answers — is written by our Brisbane-based travel specialists, or by editors working under specialist supervision. Before publication, content is reviewed against verifiable sources: government tourism authorities, ABS and Stats NZ data, parks and protected-area authorities, traditional owner peak bodies (including AIATSIS and recognised land councils), and the direct experience of staff who have travelled the region.

Updated, not abandoned

Every published page on our site carries a "Last updated" date in its byline. Pages are reviewed at least annually, and sooner when significant changes happen — new direct flight routes, operator changes, policy shifts (visa rules, park access permits), or feedback from a specialist returning with new information.

Corrections

If we make a factual error and a reader or partner alerts us, we correct it as quickly as possible and update the "Last updated" date in the page byline. To flag a correction, email contact@cooeetours.com.au with the page URL and the detail in question. We will respond within two business days.

Reader feedback

Beyond corrections, we welcome reader feedback on accuracy, missing information, accessibility, and the experience of using this site. Same address: contact@cooeetours.com.au.

Where the line is drawn

We are a travel agency, not a publisher. This site exists to help travellers find and book tours. We earn revenue when readers book a tour through us — either a commission paid by a tour operator, or a markup on a bespoke itinerary we design. Our editorial content recommends destinations, operators and partners that we genuinely think are good, but those recommendations naturally favour the tours and partners we have relationships with. That is the structure of the business and we don't pretend otherwise.

No paid placements

We do not accept payment from tourism boards, hotels, operators, airlines, or any other party in exchange for editorial content, ranking, or visibility on this site. A destination guide that recommends a specific lodge or operator does so because we have worked with them over time and stand by them — not because anyone paid for the mention.

Partner relationships

When we describe a partner — an airline, a hotel group, a ground operator — we don't disclaim the commercial relationship on every individual mention, because every operator we recommend on this site is one we have a commercial relationship with. That relationship is the basis for our knowledge of them. We disclose the relationship category at the operator's hub page where relevant.

Tour comparisons

Where this site compares tour options — sailing operators in the Whitsundays, sleeper trains across Australia, scenic flight providers — the comparison reflects our genuine view based on what each operator delivers, not a ranking influenced by commission rates.

Sources and verification

First-person knowledge

Most route-specific content draws on the direct experience of Cooee specialists and the local partners we work with. Where a specialist has not visited a place personally, we rely on partners who have, and on documented sources.

Public data

Statistical claims (population figures, traveller volumes, accommodation availability, climate averages) are sourced from publicly available data — the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Statistics New Zealand, Tourism Research Australia, state tourism authorities, national park visitor reports, and World Tourism Organization data for international destinations. Where a figure is taken from a single source, we name the source on the page.

Traditional Owner acknowledgements

Acknowledgements of Country across our destination pages name Traditional Owners as identified by AIATSIS (the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies), by recognised land council bodies, and by Indigenous-led tourism authorities. Where there is geographic overlap or ongoing recognition processes, we name all relevant groups. We do not paraphrase or summarise traditional knowledge; where cultural information is shared, it is with permission from, or attribution to, the relevant Indigenous-led source.

Reviews and testimonials

Reviews quoted on this site are taken from public review platforms — TripAdvisor, Trustpilot, and our Facebook page. They are verifiable on those platforms. We attribute each quoted review to its platform and to the reviewer's first name and last initial (consistent with platform display conventions). We are working on a unified review-ingestion system that pulls reviews directly with timestamps and reviewer attribution; in the interim, reviews quoted on destination pages are taken from our public listings.

AI and editorial production

Some content on this site is drafted with the assistance of AI tools (large language models) under the supervision of Cooee specialists and editors. Where AI is used:

• A Cooee specialist reviews every published page for accuracy, voice, and judgement before it goes live.
• AI-drafted content is fact-checked against the same sources noted in the Sources section above.
• AI is not used to fabricate reviews, testimonials, traveller stories, or specialist quotes.
• AI is not used to generate images of places we represent (we use photographs).

We disclose this because we believe the reader is owed it. The judgement, the recommendations, and the answer to "would we actually send our parents on this trip" remain ours.

Affiliate links

We do not currently use affiliate links to external retailers (Amazon, hotel-booking aggregators, etc.) within our editorial content. If this changes — for example, if we begin embedding affiliate links to specialist gear or guidebooks — we will disclose the relationship in line with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's guidance on disclosure, and update this page accordingly.

Conflicts of interest

Cooee Tours does not have outside ownership interests in any of the tour operators, airlines, hotel groups or ground partners we recommend. The Brisbane office is owned and operated by the specialists who plan and book the trips.

Our staff do, from time to time, accept familiarisation trips (commonly known as "famils") from tour operators and tourism boards — the industry-standard mechanism by which travel specialists develop first-hand knowledge of a destination or product. We treat these as research, not as obligations. Accepting a famil does not commit us to recommending the operator or destination.

Privacy and data

For our approach to your data — how we handle enquiry forms, marketing consent, cookies, and contact information — please see our Privacy Policy. The Privacy Policy and this Editorial Policy are separate documents covering different aspects of how we operate.