Success begins in our own backyard

There’s a lesson in Tasmanian taste for luxury, says Robert Morris-Nunn

AREQUEST to take part in a film shoot for an upcoming TV series, Hotels by Design, to be screened throughout Australia, caused me to pause and ponder just what should be the preferred direction of Tasmanian tourism post-pandemic.

Three projects designed over the past 20 years by my architectural practice, Henry Jones Art Hotel, Macq 01 and Saffire, were selected as Tasmania’s contribution to the series, and visiting them all to describe their unique attributes for a future interstate audience was thoughtprovoking. All three I would put into the category of accommodation formed around the concept of experiential tourism, creating something unique and memorable as guest experiences, far more than just a bed for the night, and obviously it was these attributes that attracted the series producers to select to visit them.

Due to our border restrictions, only MACq 01 and Saffire are now opening again, and then only at weekends. I find the decision to open Saffire really interesting, catering as it does for guests wishing to experience the best that Tasmania can offer at the most exclusive level. I was impressed to learn Saffire has achieved huge ongoing response from locals since it opened over a month ago and it has been virtually full, together with massive forward bookings. It reminded me that when it first opened 10 years ago, the resort was sustained by Tasmanian residents as international luxury travel was severely curtailed by a previous recession, the GFC.

What is it that would draw Tasmanians to stay at this most exclusive level? It is experiencing a truly unique, quality offering, something that will always be there as a deeply rewarding memory.

Wedding anniversaries, special birthdays and, I have it on good authority, that the number of engagements and proposals of marriage at Saffire are indeed legion. A multitude of international tourism awards that are a testimony to the same unique qualities means it’s a favourite with overseas and interstate guests too.

Places that really succeed cater to the needs of both tourists and locals, and fundamentally it is all about the experience. Get that right and the rest will follow.

This is true of the other hotels the film crew visited, especially Henry Jones. The conversion of seven derelict waterfront warehouses forever changed the view about what heritage accommodation in Tasmania could mean. Far from being yet another grand house, 20 years ago it created a totally new heritage environment where contemporary art and culture mixed with history to enrich the guest experience. I have been reliably told that the existence of the arty crowd at HJH meant that when David Walsh opened Mona, there were people already coming to Tasmania who really appreciated what Mona had to offer, and their word of mouth praise immediately created the trajectory of the museum’s rapid rise to international fame.

For me this is the core idea of what Tasmania should be doing post-pandemic to grow our state’s tourism potential. It definitely should not be focusing on more mass tourism, whether people arrive via cheap flights or else from cruise liners where they are herded into package travel deals where any authentic experience is replaced with the superficial. The dictum “less is more” is true here, and sadly the mass tourism product destroys the very environment that was its catalyst. High end, experiential tourism returns far more financially to operators themselves and indeed the Tasmanian Treasury. The state also benefits indirectly, because supply chains to provide unique quality produce and services greatly benefit. In turn the entire local economy grows.

Let me be clear, this does not mean major new developments inside designated World Heritage Areas, because this erodes the very essence of what people visit the wilderness areas to experience. Nor does it mean that these become “major projects”, because it is absolutely vital they get a social licence, and this means going through the normal planning processes currently in place.

I see future quality Tasmanian tourism projects as ones that engage with both our unique natural environment and our cultural history, be it also owning up to and accepting the appalling genocide of our first peoples, the Tasmanian Aborigines. Telling these stories with intelligence and insight and honouring the true past means we will develop into a more mature society and any tourism based on it will become less voyeuristic. It has been reliably calculated there are now more than five million Australians who are directly descended from convicts and telling the reality of their forebears’ convict experience in Tasmania until the end of transportation, which is far, far more than what happened at Port Arthur, is long overdue.

In this vein, there is one unfulfilled project I would personally dearly love to bring to life. It is the proposal of creating a unique floating resort in Recherche Bay, at the very southern tip of Tasmania, which would honour the largely unknown visits by early French explorers and the Tasmanian Aboriginal community they first met there, which the French recorded for posterity. The fact that all but one of the French visits ended in tragedy, and the trips occurred just after the French Revolution and during the Napoleonic Wars, meant the victors, the English, wiped the historical slate clean, except for many French place names on the East Coast, and our culture is all the more impoverished as a result.

There is a unique opportunity arising out of the pandemic to create a new tourism focus which honours what makes our island home special, giving people knowledge and experiences that empower and broaden the mind, and indeed, if we get that story truthfully told as a unique set of experiences, our society moving forward will be far richer.