A major Australian holiday park company has shown its faith in the long-term future of the caravan and camping industry by going on a spending spree over the past 12 months.
The ABC reports that the G’Day Group has bought the Kings Canyon Resort, Glen Helen Resort and the MacDonnell Range Holiday Park in the NT, as well as the El Questro resort just over the border in Western Australia.
Chief executive Grant Wilckens told the ABC that the firm was happy with the $75 million spend — $60m of which went on the NT businesses.
“The reality was that the portfolio that we bought from Delaware North – which is our El Questro, Kings Canyon and a property in Sydney – was probably underinvested,” he said. “Covid-19 has obviously smashed those markets and so they were quite keen to exit … we did do quite well out of that out of that purchase.”
However, Mr Wilckens warned that, with ongoing border restrictions, he did not expect tourism in the NT to be back at full strength any time soon.
“It looks quite challenging,” he told the ABC. “I’d love to see it opened around Christmas, but it looks like to me that you’ll be closed for for much longer, which is not great … for our businesses, obviously — it’s probably good for health and good for communities.”
Nonetheless, Mr Wilckens said he was optimistic about the enduring popularity of caravanning in Australia.
Tourism Central Australia chief executive Danial Rochford told the ABC investment in the region was long overdue.
“I think that bodes well for the future for the region — to have such a large player in our industry invest in Central Australia is great news,” he said. “They’ve put their money where their mouth is.
Mr Rochford said that the caravan industry was booming because of the pandemic.
“Jayco, the major caravan manufacturer in Australia, would make normally about 40,000 caravans in a year,” he said. “In the last year they’ve made 70,000, so that gives you the understanding of how big this market is going.”
Will there be any work going
I hope they are not going to put fees up if they get a monoply on caravan parks!!