Issues & Trends – May 2010
Kirkpatrick takes on challenge of Australia’s newest resort company
AT a time when there is a widespread consensus that the Australian resort scene is sorely in need of new investment and a general shake-up, Wayne Kirkpatrick has emerged from retirement to take the reins at Australia’s newest resort group.
Kirkpatrick, having made his reputation turning around the finan-cial fortunes of major Australian resorts as far apart as the Red Centre and the Whitsundays, withdrew from the daily hurly burly of commercial life five years ago.
But now a $US2 billion American corporation has coaxed him out of his Thredbo hideaway to take on the challenge of reaping dividends from a multi-million dollar investment in a portfolio of five resorts spread across the continent.
As newly appointed managing director of Delaware North Australia Parks and Resorts he is charged with lifting the performance of Heron Island, Lizard Island and Wilson Island in the Great Barrier Reef region, Kings Canyon Resort in the Red Centre and El Questro Wilderness Park and Homestead in the Kimberleys.
Kirkpatrick’s ascension to the lofty heights of Australia’s tourism industry came about almost by accident.
In 1979 he took time off to go skiing and jumped into a 30 year career in resort management and development.
He had spent the 1970s compiling an impressive CV as a successful Sydney-based advertising executive working for clients that included Bacardi, Audi, Subaru and – significantly – Lend Lease.
“By 1979, having done well, I took the winter off with my family and we rented an apartment in Thredbo,” he recounts.
Ten years later he was still at the NSW alpine resort, having been hired by owner, Lend Lease, to be marketing manager and then managing director. Next came a couple of hectic years working for the late Christopher Skase, managing the Mirage resorts on the Gold Coast and in Port Douglas.
The Mirage resorts were the most lavish of a lavish 1980s era thanks to the borrowed millions poured into them by Skase’s company Qintex. Unfortunately, as has been well chronicled in the annals of Australian corporate infamy, Qintex collapsed. Skase fled the country and became a fugitive from justice in Majorca, leaving others to cope with the debts he had left behind.
“At Qintex I learned a lot about banks and lawyers,” quips Kirkpatrick. “It was not enjoyable but it was valuable experience and I am glad that I did.”
Not only did he survive the experience but he went on to build a stellar reputation as an Australian resort manager. He is credited with key roles in turning around the financial fortunes of Ayers Rock Resort (formerly Yulara Resort) and Hamilton Island, and in 2003 he put together a group of equity investors to purchase Hamilton Island.
Along the way he became one of the movers and shakers of the Australian tourism industry. He was a director of Tourism Australia, a director of the Northern Territory Tourist Commission and he remains a director of Tourism Tasmania and he took on leadership roles within a number of other industry associations and government advisory bodies.
In 2003 ATEC honoured him with its award for outstanding contribution to the industry by an individual.
Then, in 2005 he sold out and retired to Thredbo. But Kirkpatrick, it seems, is not a man well suited to retirement. By 2006, he was at best in semi-retirement, undertaking advisory work for US company Delaware North.
The company with 50,000 employees in the US, Australia, New Zealand and the UK, is primarily active in hospitality and catering. Australian contracts include every state capital city airport and major sporting venues such as Melbourne Park and Etihad Stadium.
Having diversified into resort operation in North America (including at Sequoia National Park, Yosemite National Park, Yellowstone and Niagara Falls), Delaware North has now trained its sights on Australia looking for similar openings here.
In 2008, the “for sale” went up on a portfolio of Voyages properties. Kirkpatrick had no doubt that Heron Island, Lizard Island, Wilson Island Kings Canyon Resort and El Questro Wilderness Park and Homestead represented the opportunity he had been urging Delaware North to wait for.
Delaware North accepted his advice to buy, finalising the sale in November last year, and retained him to set up Melbourne headquarters for its Australian resort operation. Kirkpatrick says his brief was to establish a sales, marketing, reser-vations and financial management structure and to hire a chief executive to run it. Then Delaware North asked him to be the chief executive.
Suddenly Kirkpatrick finds himself not even in semi-retirement. He is working full time on the challenge of developing Delaware North’s Australian resorts. It is up to him to prove the worth of his assurances to Delaware North that the five resorts do indeed represent a great opportunity to make its mark in Australia.
He is as aware as anyone of the obstacles facing Australian resort operators – the need to attract and retain quality staff to remote and seasonal locations; the relatively small domestic market base; the competition from other Asia Pacific destinations offering well-priced resorts low airfares on frequent international air services.
He also acknowledges the perform-ance of the former Voyages resorts has fallen off in recent times. “It would be fair to say that after a decision to sell, management becomes pre-occupied with the sales process rather than marketing and re-investing in the business. But the businesses have in the past been very profitable,” he says, exuding confidence that the team he is building at Delaware can secure a bright future for them.
• The second part of this article, to be published in next month’s travelBulletin, will look at what Wayne Kirkpatrick has planned for the new resort operator.