Turtle Beach Resort
The latest buzz in the accommodation industry has been the recent multimillion transaction of the well-known Turtle Beach Resort at Mermaid Beach in the heart of the Gold Coast.
“This has been the biggest management rights purchase Australia wide,” said Stephen West executive general manager at Turtle Beach Resort since August 31 2010. “The great thing about the partnership is that all those involved are either very experienced management rights operators or are extensively experienced in business. We operate as a cohesive team.”
Cutting through the glitz and glamour and the recent media hype, what is behind this resort that makes it continually tick over successfully?
Located on the Gold Coast Highway but without the traffic noise, Turtle Beach Resort was named by Holidays with Kids as one of the top 10 Australian family resorts.
A contributing fact is that it is family orientated, not high rise and has a good solid reputation both here and overseas. Many families are looking for bargain priced holidays without having to be in the back streets.
“It is rated by AAA tourism as a 4½ star property but it doesn’t have the 4½ star price tag,” said Mr West.
When guests come to Turtle Beach Resort they are checking into a product that is giving them new experiences that they may not have at home. The aim is to ensure guests have a memorable and enjoyable holiday. For example, broadband and wireless internet is available no matter where you are on the lavish ten acre property.
There are a dozen or more varieties of coffee to try at the café. The legendary wood-fire pizza at the Pizzeria and Bar has guests returning for more. From the convenience store, 28-seat cinema, nine barbeque areas, two restaurants, two playgrounds, four spas and swimming pools (including an adults only pool area) then to the 18-hole putt-putt golf course and more, there is ample to keep everyone occupied and entertained.
There are 300 strata title apartments on site. Dreamtime Resorts is the marketing force for resorts and Turtle Beach Resort is the 21st property to enter the Dreamtime group.
“It is good to have Dreamtime Resorts to market us because they are specialists in the area.
We all work independently but collectively our buying power for advertising is so much better with them on board,” said Mr West. “We do a lot of overseas promotional work as well and for us to do that ourselves would be financially crippling. That’s where Dreamtime weave their expertise.”
There is a consistently high rate of tour sales by Turtle Beach Resort through Ticketmates, which includes theme park tickets, tour attractions and car hire.
The executive general manager’s diverse and interesting role is what attracted Stephen West to Turtle Beach Resort.
From an engineering apprenticeship in his teens to 23 years with Qantas, first as a flight attendant (Mr West’s wife was also a flight attendant) then cabin crew manager, Mr West left Sydney for the Gold Coast ten years ago. His thirst for learning and diversity continued.
To fill in some spare time when working in management rights, Mr West took flying lessons and went solo. “It was something I always wanted to do,” he said.
“I have a masters degree in aviation technology and I am still interested in the aviation from the business point of view — more the profitability and the operation of the airline and new technology that comes out. It always interests me how things can be done better,” said Mr West.
That interest ties in well with the technological changes happening at Turtle Beach Resort. In November, the Levart channel manager goes on line, providing a range of distribution options including immediate booking confirmations. “It is a way for us to manage our rooms without overselling and not have to go on the individual websites to update them,” said Mr West.
Levart is an automated live interactive data base that is interlinked with multiple websites.
“We have the capacity with this to spread the resort thinly across many websites and capture bookings that may have been lost,” said Mr West.
Besides the structural and aesthetic components of the resort, it is the people that work at Turtle Beach Resort that make it all the more enjoyable.
“There is a structure of 65 staff divided into several departments. I am the partnership representation on site where I take care of the financial viability of the business, protecting the brand and ensure the name Turtle Beach remains squeaky clean,” said Mr West.
“The property is ten years old and we are continually refurbishing. Of the 65 staff, we have a maintenance division of four men; a refurbishing division of two people; a public division of four people who keep the ten acre property well presented and other staff allocations that keep the resort running efficiently,” Mr West said.
Staff retention is always an ongoing issue for the hospitality industry. At Turtle Beach there is minimal staff turnover, for example, of the 22 housekeeping staff, three have been at the resort longer than seven years and the majority have been there three years plus.
That “happy in my work” atmosphere has a flown on affect to the resort guests who keep returning from near and far for that memorable holiday at Turtle Beach Resort.
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