Whitsundays park crowned Australia's best

Despite their increasing popularity, it seems you don’t need a
million-dollar splash park to be judged Australia’s best caravan park.

That’s the case at least with the BIG4 Adventure Whitsunday Resort, which got the gold award in the tourist and caravan parks category at the 2012 Australian Tourism Awards.

Located in Airlie Beach, a popular gateway to Queensland’s Whitsunday islands, the four and a half-star rated caravan ‘resort’ has come a long way since being taken over by the McKinnon family 19 years ago, says Naomi McKinnon who runs the park with husband Greg.

“When they purchased (the park) it was a going concern, but literally had no star rating, it was so run down,” she explained. “Other than the amenities block there were no other structure or facilities in the park, so everything that is here today has basically been developed from that point.”

Today, the manicured 14 acre park includes acres of landscaped gardens, a range of accommodation options including 46 cabins and 120 sites, and plenty of family-friendly facilities including a 32m lagoon-style pool,  tennis courts, mini golf, outdoor movie theatre, adventure playground, giant jumping pillow, basketball and volleyball courts and a Kids Club.

With an additional 12 acres on site available for future development, Ms McKinnon says the next plan was to build a large conference centre. Although a splash park and more accommodation options were also on the cards, a key priority is to attract corporate travellers during the less busy times outside peak holiday periods and week-ends.

“Our key objective at the moment is to get higher occupancy during those mid week, off-peak times, before we add other major facilities for families,” she says.

No stranger to awards, the Airlie Beach park picked up the prestigious BIG4 Supreme Award for Excellence in 2009, and has also won best park in the Whitsundays region for the last 17 years.

She attributes the latest win to the dedication of the park’s 30 staff who deliver “above and beyond in the customer service experience”.

“We’ve got just amazing staff, and a lot of them have been with us for a long time,” she says.

She also says joining the BIG4 holiday group 14 years ago was “the stepping stone to the park’s success”.

However, committing the considerable amount of time and effort required in making a submission, in order to be eligible to win a state or national tourism award, is also vital.

“The submission process is quite involved, (it's) a 30 page document at the end of the day… the research and preparation and everything, is a pretty massive undertaking,” she explains.

Six out of the seven state finalists in the caravan park category of the 2012 Australian Tourism Awards were BIG4-affiliated parks, and it’s the fourth year in a row that a BIG4 park has won the major tourism award.