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- Ooraminna – home of the wow factor
High on the red centreChris and Mechelle Collins of Alice Springs Helicopters have become marketing believers. They discovered that getting their airborne tourism credentials out into the national and international marketplace has been the key to record sales in each of the past two years. Now, tourism ranks equally with mining exploration, rescue work and their other central Australian helicopter endeavours. “Last season and the season before, tourism made up almost half our business sales,” explains company director and chief pilot Chris Collins. “Last season we doubled our sales from the year before.” Marketing made the difference. Until last year Mechelle had actively marketed their business, enjoying steady growth in tourism. Then they contracted professional marketing consultant Anne Grebert, and their sales really took off. Taking advantage of the Federal Government’s Australian Export Marketing Development Grant, Grebert has added another dimension to the company’s marketing effort, concentrating on introducing their products to the international market. And they have a comprehensive range of tourism products to choose from: for those keen to get a wedgetail eagle’s-eye view of the Centralian capital, there’s the “Just the Alice” flight; or a longer flight for those interested in exploring the majestic Mt Gillen Ridgeline; to an actionpacked half day around isolated Ruby Gap and the rugged East MacDonnell Ranges. Their custom-made flights include tours to Uluru and visits to nearby cattle stations and remote Aboriginal community art centres. “For those visiting the Centre, we’ve become almost a ‘must do’ activity,” says Mechelle. It was this innovative tourism work that earned Alice Springs Helicopters the 2008 Northern Territory Small Business Export Award. Passengers benefit from pilot Chris Collins’ years of flight experience over the Northern Territory. Chris had come to the Top End during the 1970s as a fixed wing pilot with fledgling company Air North. He met Mechelle and the couple married and moved to a property in South Australia to raise their family. But the wool price dropped and, to keep food on the table, Chris returned to flying. In 1990, he decided to take an intensive helicopter licence course and soon found himself mustering cattle back in the Top End, he and Mechelle starting their own helicopter business. The new company was offered geophysical mining work, travelling all over Australia in a specially converted Bell 47 helicopter. But work was increasing in Central Australia so in 2003 they relocated to Alice Springs, leasing ground at the airport. “Once we built our hangar and office complex we were asked to consider tourism,” recalls Chris. “We were babes in the wood, but we had some really good people from Tourism NT and Tourism Australia advising and putting us onto workshops and seminars. We joined the local tourism association and through them you meet others.” Alice Springs Helicopters (ANH) today employs four line pilots, has a fleet of six helicopters, and still does a great deal of exploration work, heavy sling lifting, filming for TV, commercials and features, as well as medical evacuations and rescue work for AMSAR (Australian Maritime Search and Rescue). But the accent is on tourism, and there’s no better day to see their operation in action than on Thursday when the Ghan transcontinental railroad train rolls in for its four-hour Alice Springs stop. ANH runs buses to the railway station picking up passengers for helicopter flights over the desert ranges. They keep a record of all who fly with them, keen to know where they come from and why they came to Alice Springs. Surprisingly, their clientele is 80 per cent domestic and only 20 per cent international. “We can do so much more in the international marketplace because we’ve really only just started,” explains Mechelle. “Every time we initiate a new product, it takes a couple of years for it to come to fruition. We’ll see the effects of what we’re doing now in 2011.” “You can have the best product in the world but, if you don’t market it, you’re not going to sell it.” International operators will soon be asking for 2010 to 2011 rates, in order to get their brochures out. Product information must be in the market well in advance if travel agents are to assist clients planning ahead for their travels. Meanwhile, the Collinses are out there marketing at trade shows around Australia and internationally. They have successfully applied for the Territory Government’s Trade Support Scheme, which pays up to half of overseas accommodation and airfares for Territory businesses seeking export markets. Strong planning, coupled with active sales, has transformed their business. “You can have the best product in the world but, if you don’t market it, you’re not going to sell it,” says Mechelle. “The secret of tourism in Alice is to continually update your product, make sure it’s fresh and appropriate - then market like crazy.” Ooraminna – home of the wow factorWhen visitors head towards Ooraminna on the gravel road through the scrub and suddenly leap over a rise there it is: an early corrugated iron town that looks like something out of an old Banjo Patterson poem. It’s surrounded by a rocky valley that the dying desert sun turns a deep shade of red. The visitors are just a few of the 500 who will dine in this unlikely place tonight, in the shadow of the fading hotel, beneath the Central Australian Milky Way. The beers start flowing and the meal is served - not unlike the Sunday roast your mother made all those years ago. And when they douse the lights, the stars shine so bright they cast a faint shadow. This is not your normal corporate dinner. Something strange comes over the visitors in such a nostalgic environment. “Most people don’t want to leave,” says the Alice Springs Convention Centre sales manager Karen Lock, who helped arrange this event. “I think everyone has a bit of outback in them and they’ve probably never had the opportunity to do anything like this. So when they get here they go, ‘wow.’” The diners are drawn to the informality: the warm welcome from pastoralists Jan and Billy Hayes and their son-in-law Sallie; the goofy gags about station life, while the tables are cleared by staff using a wheelbarrow; the fresh water from a well so deep that the only impurity is ‘a bit of dinosaur’s pee’. “We don’t know why they like it so much, because when you go somewhere else, everything’s much more swish than it is here,” says Jan Hayes. Ooraminna lies on the northern side of historic Deep Well Station, a cattle property lying just south of Alice Springs, that’s been the home of the Hayes family since 1884. But crushing drought in the early 1990s provided the stimulus to diversify, so Billy and Jan decided to take a shot at tourism. “We chose this area because it was probably the most unproductive spot on the property and the closest to town,” recalls Jan. “If it had been any good [for cattle] we would have never come here.” They started out modestly doing horse rides, nature walks and cattle station tours, providing billy tea and damper. They built a sprawling lodge overlooking the ranges and some five-star rustic accommodation but, having no marketing skills to speak of, they made just enough in their first year to pay for their TV licence. Then providence knocked. Friend and local singer-songwriter Ted Egan appeared, asking if he could build a movie set at Ooraminna. Struggling for investors for the fi lm version of his song, The Drover’s Boy, he decided to film a short segment to spark fundraising. “He offered to pay us but we knew he didn’t have any money, so we told him not to worry, but when the film was finished he was meant to bring the site back to normal,” says Jan. “Anyway, he came back one day and said he was so grateful to us for letting him build it that he’d build the pub to last and we could have it. And we thought, ‘what are we gonna do with it?’” It did not take long to find out. The fi lm project failed but, nestled in the picturesque valley, the set is stunning—a replica of Newcastle Waters in 1921. By now they had been doing small numbers of dinners at Ooraminna, and friends asked if they could have their business Christmas party at the film set one night. Why not? And the party was such a success that it soon led to others, always getting bigger and often more extravagant. “I cooked for hungry men and taught my own kids for 30 years, then I fell into this with no idea of what I’m doing,” recalls Jan. “And if clients say, ‘can you do it’? I say ‘yup’. And then I go away and say, ‘bloody hell’…” The Hayeses developed a strong relationship with the Central Australian Tourism Industry Association and later the new Convention Centre. Both worked to get an evening dinner at Ooraminna as an integral part of any prospective conference or convention. Since then, they have catered for many high profile firms, the biggest being over 800 people. When Massey Ferguson introduced a new tractor model at Ooraminna at a night function, Jan had the idea of perching the new tractor high above the diners and guests on a nearby cliff, then splashing it with light at the moment of introduction. The CEO of Massey Ferguson emailed Jan to ask, what if it didn’t work? Jan replied, “Dear John, get rid of that bloody Pommy accent that you’ve got, learn to ride a horse, and I’ll give you a job.” The show worked a treat. Today it’s not only dinner for the corporate hundreds. Ooraminna also attracts independent travellers who would rather stay out on the station than in town. They cater for the group market doing educational tours for seniors or young ones, and the teambuilding or incentive market: businesses that reward employees with a few days at a distinctive place like Ooraminna, like the French Toyota corporate group that ordered 110 swags to sleep under the stars Directory: layouts -> download.aspx?SourceUrl= -> publications -> Documents Documents -> Cover Story Documents -> Inside this issue Documents -> Cover story layouts -> Factors on the basis of which import or export duty and other measures in respect of trade in goods are applied layouts -> Curriculum vitae (updated April 2016 ) layouts -> Periodic Vehicle Inspection for Emissions and Roadworthiness layouts -> Namas Proposal – nama seeking Support for Preparation Title of Mitigation Action Download 156.45 Kb. Share with your friends:
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