Couran Cove Island Resort is one of Australia’s most iconic and versatile resorts – delivering luxury retreats, business events, strategic meetings, product launches and relaxing getaways since 1998.
Whether for corporate retreats, product launches, conferences or relaxing weekend breaks, Couran Cove Island Resort caters for all successfully and enjoys an exceptionally high percentage of repeat local and international guests.
A favourite retreat for many of Australia’s business leaders, Couran Cove also has the advantage of being a convenient and pleasant commute to Hope Harbour and the nearby business and tourism centres of Southport and Surfers Paradise.
It is this ‘convenient remoteness’ that gives Couran Cove a unique edge in the business events market, offering all the facilities of a luxury Pacific island resort while still being close enough to Brisbane and Gold Coast business centres to conduct major product launches. A good example was last year’s program by The Haines Group, presenting its versatile range of powerboats, sea craft and the new Suzuki outboard motor range to national dealers and the international boating media at Couran Cove.
Achieving goals
Attention to detail, service, superb resort infrastructure and a skilled management team has combined to give Couran Cove an edge leading into 2009 after achieving a range of key goals in 2008.
Among the most important has been significant growth in FIT (free independent traveller) leisure night stays and in direct internet bookings.
“Considering the challenging global economic circumstances that the industry has faced, Couran Cove Island Resort has managed to increase its FIT leisure room nights through strong national marketing campaigns,” said resort general manager, Scott Hayden. “We have also been able to achieve an increase of $11 on the resort’s average room rate compared to last year’s financial results.
“From a marketing perspective, we have a team of young dynamic professionals who are able to adapt to market trends and who are able to reach the consumer through fresh and innovative marketing campaigns.
“We have been extremely visible within the market place and, whereas most companies have tightened the reins on marketing expenses, we have proactively increased spending in certain market segments enabling an improvement in market share.”
Great planning
Couran Cove Island Resort’s business planning should be an example to many guest companies that use the resort for ‘lock-down’ planning and strategy sessions.
Mr Hayden said, “One of the resort’s main priorities was to increase our room nights via the internet. We embarked on a rebuilding process for the resort’s website. We created a fresh, interactive, user friendly website that has seen us increase our internet bookings by 40 percent.
“Considering the downturn in the domestic wholesale market, to achieve growth in our direct leisure bookings, has been very rewarding.”
Mr Hayden said the redeveloping and strengthening of the resort’s website has been a key driver for the business.
“The business since inception has been very technologically advanced,” he said. “We took a different approach this year and focused more intently on educating our staff in a range of specifications to maximise the high standard of technology that we use on a daily basis.”
A key element of Couran Cove Island Resort’s success in the corporate market has been its food and beverage facilities.
The resort has recently acquired a new Executive Chef, Charles Mancy, and has undertaken a major revamp of all restaurant and banqueting menus. This is aimed to continue and boost the resort’s superb award-winning track record.
“Charles has made huge changes within our culinary department and has only enhanced further what is a very strong sellable product,” Mr Hayden said.
Meeting the market
Resort management is always a challenging business, but the global financial crisis late last year added a new dimension to which Couran Cove Island Resort had to adapt.
“A real highlight was to maintain strong brand awareness in tough economic times, not reducing our marketing spend and actively being on top of the consumer’s mind has been a driving point for this business,” Mr Hayden said.
“We have achieved strong consumer awareness through targeted marketing campaigns with both national TVC’s (television commercials) and local radio campaigns. This has had a huge internal benefit on our staff and our guests.
“In terms of our staff it indicates that we are up to the challenge in these tough economic times and that we are prepared to trade throughout and provide the best possible product that we can.
“Good fiscal management and the drive and determination of all staff can achieve this.”
The major award won by the resort in 2008 was Best Corporate Caterer for Queensland presented by Restaurant and Catering QLD.
“We also made the finals of the national awards for this category. This is an award that we very proud of and have been able to maintain for the past four years,” Mr Hayden said.
“This business does not run on any one person alone. All our staff are an integral part of the operation. In 2008 we celebrated our 10-year anniversary, and I am very proud of the fact that we have 250 employees, of which 65 have been with the resort for six years and longer. We also have 10 original staff members who have been with the resort since pre-opening.”
Part of the reason for Couran Cove’s success in retaining staff is its well-orchestrated career development programs.
“There have been many examples of personal growth throughout the year,” Mr Hayden said. “We have had staff members that have completed both internal and external studies funded by the business. These individuals have been able to apply these newfound skills for the good of the business, showing a real return on the investment.”
Couran Cove also made the most of celebrating its decade anniversary.
“Being the resort’s 10-year anniversary, to celebrate the occasion with so many colleagues who have been involved with the business for so many years has been very special.
“The 10-year occasion was a very strong marketing tool that we effectively used in a range of specials placed into market for the consumer.”
UP TO THE CHALLENGE
Couran Cove Island Resort has focused on delivering the right product for the long term as it evaluated and coped with the challenges that faced Australia’s accommodation industry in 2008.
“2008 has been a challenging year across all our market segments,” Mr Hayden said. “Domestic tourism has suffered in recent times due to the allure of overseas travel being seen has a good alternative with the strength of the Australian dollar.
“From an inbound perspective Australia was seen as an expensive destination. As a business we have had to adapt to these challenges and hence create the innovative measures to contend with these market issues.
“With our current marketing initiatives and strategies we believe that we are in a position to capture the benefits of the weaker Australian dollar, which increases the costs of travelling abroad.
“We are confident of a real boost in domestic tourism and are cognizant of providing what the market is asking for. This places the challenge back onto the business to provide our domestic and international visitors with what we have promised,” Mr Hayden said.
“We believe that we have our cost structures in place to deal with the leaner months of the business, we have a flexible work force that is able to cope with the demands of variable occupancy levels.”
Astute planning, the fostering of staff, concentration on effective marketing and careful adoption of new technologies has positioned Couran Cove Island Resort well for growth in both business and leisure markets in 2009.
The resort is well positioned, also, to be a catalyst for the growth of the businesses and business leaders that utilise Couran Cove Island Resort. ◊
COURAN COVE ISLAND RESORT
Situated on South Stradbroke Island
Industry
Hospitality and Tourism. 250 staff.
Contacts
Scott Hayden, General Manager. scotth@couran.com
Dermot Madigan, Resident Resort Manager. dermotm@couran.com
Katie Raymond, Financial Controller. katier@couran.com
Anthony Hills, Director of Rooms. anthonyh@couran.com
Sue Wilson, Associate Director of Sales and Marketing. suew@couran.com
Irene Riordan, HR Manager. irener@couran.com
Reservations – 1800 268 726
Sales and Marketing – 07 5509 3000
www.couran.com ◊
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