Lockdown renovations turn the Great Ocean Road Resort into a post COVID survivor
The Great Ocean Road Resort in Victoria’s Anglesea has undergone a transformation during the state’s lockdowns.
While it is once again attracting visitors, owner Damien Cerrantonio believes its plans to sustain its post summer holiday momentum, will set the resort up for future success.
Cerrantonio, who has owned the resort for the past eight years, has recently overseen the venue’s biggest transformation since he took charge.
“COVID obviously hit our industry pretty hard, but one of the benefits of it is that it has allowed us to make improvements,” Cerrantonio told the Australian Hospitality Directory.
“When COVID first hit, we thought international travel's not going to be here for a while. However, we relied on our international travelers during the midweek periods all year round. So, for us it was, ‘How do we replace that market in the short to medium term?’"
With that challenge in mind, Cerrantonio looked at how to improve not just the facilities, but also the service.
“The property was a little bit tired, so we thought we'd first refurbish our reception and day spa area. We really wanted to make the day spa a destination in its own right and really embrace the locals because we wanted to remove that seasonality. One of the best ways of doing that is incorporating the locals into your business, whether that's locals that live here or people that have holiday homes and are travelling to and from Melbourne.”
While the day spa had always been part of the resort, it was never a focus.
Until now.
The day spa, which the entire Great Ocean Road team had a hand in, is now state of the art and one of the region's leading facilities.
The restaurant was the next focus.
In June 2020, when another of Victoria’s six lockdowns was implemented, Cerrantonio turned his attention to the resort’s dining facility.
“We had this beautiful day spa and reception, but then our restaurant was not up to standard. So, we decided to fully refurbish and gut the restaurant and turn it into a fine dining restaurant during those long lockdown months.
Prior to this, the restaurant had been more of a family friendly bistro. Again, Cerrantonio had a ‘destination place’ in mind.
The next big change was to the conference facilities. This is where Cerrantonio feels the Great Ocean Road Resort can have a major post COVID impact.
“We believe the conference market is going to be a great market midweek and we know they spend on food and beverage.
“We wanted to tie in the day spa into our conferences and corporate retreats. So, for the rest of 2020, we redid the restaurant. We created a private dining room, and our conference space and also redid the indoor heated pool.
“To do all those works under normal conditions would be really impossible. So, lockdowns were kind of a blessing through 2020.”
In 2021, Cerrantonio’s focus was on tired rooms.
“We knew that we had to redo our rooms. However, timing was an issue. We couldn’t shut down fully for two years to renovate all the rooms.”
Fast forward to mid 2021 and Victorians once again found themselves in lockdown and it was obvious it would be a long one.
“We bit the bullet and decided to renovate probably three quarters of our rooms. We did about 20 rooms in about eight weeks. Redid all the landscaping as well and brought the rooms up to a four-star standard: modern and stylish. Nothing structurally. It was more internal and non-structural, but it was trying to bring up the accommodation up to a standard of where the restaurant and day spa was.”
Of the 30 rooms, only five now need to be done during 2022.
Cerrantonio expects this year and beyond to shift focus to leisure travel, the conference market and leadership or company retreats.
One of the major benefits for the Great Ocean Road Resort is being at the start of the Great Ocean Road, which means you're not travelling four hours to the end of it.
“Anglesea itself is primarily an intra-state destination where people from Melbourne come. Given that we're only an hour and a half away from Melbourne has held us in good stead when we haven't been in lockdown because that Melbourne market has flocked to areas like the Surf Coast.”
To capitalise on regional travelers and the return of international travelers, Cerrantonio also co-purchased the former Anglesea Motor Inn in December 2020, which is next door to the resort.
“We rebranded that into the Riverside Motel and we'll really target those small international groups for that property and concentrate on the higher-end travelers who will be packaging up their accommodation with the restaurant or the spa.”
While Cerrantonio concedes there may still be ups and downs to come, he is confident the market is turning.
“I'm not concerned about the Christmas period or early into next year. I think what the true test will be is what does next winter look like? What will our borders be doing then? Will international travelers be able to come here on holiday easily? And how easily will it be for Melburnians to travel overseas? So, that's probably what we are looking to see. The confidence being reinstated for people overseas because people don't just book a holiday to Australia. For most parts of the world, we're a long haul destination.”
And The Great Ocean Road hopes to be a destination of choice.
Irit Jackson, 17th February 2022
