Forget bathrooms with views or even hotel windows with great vistas. With Wild Bush Luxury, Australia, you can literally sleep in a room with a view where the entire room is transparent and the view is, well, everywhere you look.
This is what you get when you stay at Bamurru Plains, on the edge of Kakadu Park in the Northern Territory. “The idea is to expose guests to the environment because it’s not what’s inside that matters, it’s what’s outside,” said Charles Carlow (pictured left), who started the business almlost 10 years ago.
“The rooms are built in such a way that you can see outside but people can’t see in so you still have your privacy but you are completely exposed to the environment.”
In the room, there is no television, no minibar or telephone. “We wanted to remove the comfort of the hotel room but have spent money on the beds – 500 thread count and all that – ensuite bathroom and organic linens.”
For those who have to have it, there’s wifi at the main lodge (pictured below)..
Wild Bush Luxury, which offers a total of five high-end bush experiences, is exactly the kind of operation Tourism Australia would like to see more of. One of the founding members of Luxury Lodges of Australia, it has at the heart of its operations sustainability and conservation and donations are made to the Australian Wildlife Conservancy.
It’s taken Carlow several years though to realise that while trying to run an operation that embraces sustainability and conservation may be good for the soul, it may not necessarily feed the pocket.
Carlow, who used to work with Cathay Pacific in Johannesburg, was inspired to start Wild Bush Luxury from his experiences with safari tourism in Africa. Working with safari operators, he saw how good the Africans were in putting together nature tourism and so 10 years ago, he took the plunge and started a company to run niche tours in Australia for intrepid travellers.
“There are amazing locations in Australia and you have larger than life characters in the bush,” he said.
Five years later, he started Wild Bush Luxury and started collecting products including SalSalis, Ningaloo Reef; Blue Mountains private safaris; Arkaba Station (pictured below) and Arkaba Walking Tours. It will add a sixth soon, a fishing camp in Kimberley, Western Australia, where he has bought two old fishing camps and is redoing their interior.
Each product is specific to the location and everything is built around the native environment. At Sal Salis, you sleep in tented camps that look like sand dunes. “We are selling wildlife and wilderness, not accommodation, and we want to shape people’s minds and opinions about nature.”
A key ingredient is thus its guides who are all highly trained in their specific areas of interest. “The guides make the difference, just like the rangers in an African safari.”
It offers an all-inclusive package where for one price, you get everything and at Bamurru Plains, the price starts at A$930 per person per night for a minimum of two nights.
Currently most of his clients are Australians escaping from city life and he gets a few customers from Europe and the UK. There are a few nibbles from Asia, primarily from the Singapore market. And it’s Sal Salis at Ningaloo Reef that attracts them. Here, from April to July, it’s whale shark season and there are private charters for camp guests and its own spotter plane.
He admitted it was a struggle in the beginning. “It’s taken us four years to get here. The hardest part remains trying to persuade people overseas that there’s another way of seeing Australia – that you don’t have to stick to the icons – and still do it comfortably.”
The challenges of running operations in the harsh outback are various – from rains to humidity – and maintenance costs are high, not to mention, the day-to-day logistics of operating.
“The cost of building in remote areas is high and it’s hard too to find staff who want to work in remote locations, unlike Africa, where people make their career out of the bush”
With his previous ties with Cathay Pacific, he realises the Asian market is one he needs to tap. “We haven’t done much to generate business out of Asia but will step up efforts,” said Carlow.
Currently, all his international business, about 25%, come from tour operators. Carlow wants to explore the online direct channel. After putting in its booking engine on its website, it is seeing some bookings coming in. He’s also exploring social media although he admits he could do better at that.
Saying this business was harder than running an airline, it is “however much sexier”, he said.
The end game, he said, is to sell a circuit of experiences, not just one product.
Making a business out of nature however is not easy, he said. “When we started, we were too focused on the conservation message and we found customers didn’t like that. We realised we had to get the product right first, and once people experience nature at its best, they change. There is no need to preach.”
* Photos courtesy of Wild Bush Luxury, Australia
