The Zeppelin Times 4CRB Travel Show...InterContinental Sanctuary Cove Resort.” Hayman closed in...

Big upgrades tipped as IHG takes over Hayman IslandHotel group IHG is taking over management of Queensland luxury icon Hayman Island and will rebrand it as Hayman Island, by InterContinental.

A major upgrade and makeover is in the wind. Some reports say AUD 100 million will be spent, though IHG has not named a figure. Luxury homes will also be sold on Hayman Island too, it seems, and other Australian InterContinental properties are in line for significant refurbishment.

“Hayman Island, by InterContinental will be an oasis at the northernmost point in the Whitsunday Islands that shows off the best of the InterContinental brand when it opens in 2019, following significant investment to refurbish the product,” a statement said.

“The 166-room hotel is the only property on the 400-hectare island and will showcase world-class facilities, rooms and suites in one of the world’s most unique locations, accessible via Hamilton Island and then by either luxury vessel or helicopter.

“In addition to the hotel, Mulpha Australia Limited will offer a bespoke collection of homes for sale to those who want to own a piece of heaven on Hayman Island.

“The landmark agreement with Mulpha Australia Limited also sees IHG continue with a long-term agreement to manage both InterContinental Sydney and InterContinental Sanctuary Cove Resort.”

Hayman closed in March 2017 after being severely clobbered by Cyclone Debbie. In June last year, Mulpha and One and Only ended their agreement to brand and manage Hayman.

Money will also be spent on the InterContinental Sydney (the first major upgrade since opening) and InterContinental Sanctuary Cove.

“A significant investment into

refurbishments and renewal will take place over the coming years” at the InterContinental Sydney, to “see the hotel elevated to even higher levels of luxury and sophistication”. Event spaces will be added, including a grand ballroom to show off the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House panoramas.

InterContinental Sanctuary Cove on Queensland’s Gold Coast “will enjoy a refurbishment that will see it continue its legacy as one of Queensland’s most prestigious hotels”, the statement said.

IHG’s managing director, Australasia and Japan, Leanne Harwood, said: “Luxury travellers have long had an affinity with InterContinental Sydney and InterContinental Sanctuary Cove Resort, so we are thrilled to continue their legacy for many years to come. What is particularly special is to now welcome Hayman Island to the IHG family. We could not be more delighted to continue, and strengthen, our partnership with Mulpha Australia as we pursue our expansion plans in Australasia.”

Mulpha Australia Limited chief executive Greg Shaw added: “We are delighted to continue our successful partnership with InterContinental Hotels and Resorts and look forward to an exciting period of investment to reinforce our leading position in the Australian luxury hotel market.”

Hayman Island has been synonymous with Australian tropical island holiday luxury ever since Royal Hayman Hotel opened there in 1950.

IHG currently has 47 hotels operating under four brands across Australasia: InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express with a further 19 in the pipeline including Hotel Indigo and EVEN Hotels.

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First images emerge of Virgin’s adults-only shipScarlet Lady, the first ship of Virgin Voyages (the Virgin group’s seagoing arm, a joint venture with Bain Capital) looks very different from most cruise ships.

It will carry 2700 passengers, all aged over 18, and will focus on “adult play” – featuring everything from a boxing ring to “spin yoga” (a combination of yoga and indoor cycling) and gaming for adults.

The ship is due to begin sailing to the Caribbean from PortMiami in 2020, with a second ship due for delivery in 2021.

Artist’s impressions and computer-graphic representations of how the ship will look

are emerging.

Virgin Voyages says the Scarlet Lady logo is a variation on the Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Australia logos, “but this time she reappears as a mystical Mermaid – the soul and spirit behind the first Virgin Voyages ship”.

“Though beautiful and mysterious in vision, she represents a woman of power – the leader not only on our first voyage, but also in our efforts to encourage front-facing female leaders throughout our company with our Virgin Voyages Scarlet Squad Program.”

Virgin says it will shortly be “flooding



the drydock in preparation for the ship’s “jumboization” – enlarging the ship by adding an entire section. This process is a long and complex endeavour which marks an important milestone in the build-out of our Scarlet Lady.

“Looking ahead to our continued growth, this shipyard celebration is to be topped off with the initial cutting of steel on our second vessel, due for delivery in 2021. A maritime tradition, the Steel Cutting Ceremony carves out the first pieces of steel that will one day adorn the hull of the ship.”

The Miami Herald reports that the ship will include a “Crow’s Nest”, a secluded sundeck with 360-degree views for sunrise and sunset yoga classes, and The Runway, a Virgin-red running track.

Both areas will be connected to The Athletic Club, an “adult-play” area at the top of the vessel. It’s built around a red-and-white semicircular lounger, “the largest daybed at sea”.

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Kangaroo Island Spirits looks to Port Adelaide to bolster gin businessCraft distillery Kangaroo Island Spirits is setting up a warehouse in Port Adelaide to provide a mainland base for its expanding operations and to offer master classes to cater for a seemingly insatiable thirst for boutique gin.

While a shopfront isn’t in the immediate plans, KIS director Sarah Lark says it might not be too far off.

“We’re definitely talking about that and I think there’s real potential for not just us but for the whole Kangaroo Island produce set up like there is in the Central Market to occur in Port Adelaide,” she says.

“I stayed in Port Adelaide for a week recently and I really didn’t realise how much it had changed there – parts of it are really starting to take off and there’s a very good feel about the place.”

The revitalisation of Port Adelaide has been talked about for two decades but it has only been in the past year or two that it has started to materialise through projects such as the Hart’s Mill transformation and the Woolstores precinct upgrade, where Pirate Life is building its new brewery, bar and beer garden.

KIS is already sold in more than 200 bars and bottleshops across Australia and is looking to increase its presence on the eastern seaboard through its new Sydney-based distributor Nip of Courage.

Its gins boast a distinctly Australian flavour enhanced by the inclusion of local botanicals such as foliage from the coastal Daisy bush (olearia axillaris), native Juniper (myoporum insulare) and locally grown Lemon Myrtle and Aniseed myrtle.

Sarah and Jon Lark (pictured right), who established Australia’s first dedicated gin distillery on Kangaroo Island in 2002, are also hoping to begin exporting their gins later this year.

The warehouse location in Port Adelaide will play a role in national and international distribution.

“It is really going to help in times like we’ve got at the moment when the ferry doesn’t run for a number of days (because of bad weather) and we can’t get things off the island,” Sarah says.

“So this is going to be a nice place for us to also store our stuff and work from in Adelaide but we can also offer master classes and training to people wanting to get to know our products better.”

The distillery will set up the warehouse in the coming weeks and hopes to begin using it for classes in October or November.

Kangaroo Island, Australia’s third largest offshore island, is about 150km southwest of Adelaide and is a tourism icon known for its natural beauty and wildlife.

The Cygnet River distillery has ramped up production in the past 12 months since installing a new 300-litre still at the beginning of last year. It also uses its original 80-litre copper pot still for specialty batches.

While its Wild Gin, which uses locally sourced boobialla or native juniper, is easily its biggest seller, the distillery’s Old Tom Gin stole the limelight this week when it was awarded a Gold Medal at the coveted 2018 International Wine & Spirits Competition in London.

Wild Gin was awarded an Outstanding Silver medal and the KIS Whisky Barrel Gin was awarded Bronze.

Adelaide-based distiller Never Never Distilling won Silver Medals for its Southern Strength and Triple Juniper gins while Tanunda-based Seppeltsfield Road Distillers were awarded a Silver Medal for its House Gin and a Bronze for its Barossa Dry Gin.

Old Tom Gin also won a Gold Medal this month at the Melbourne International Spirits Competition where it claimed the accolade of 2018 Australian Distillery of the Year.

There are about 20 distilleries in South Australia and 150 nationally but only about



one per cent of spirits consumed in Australia are produced here.

Sarah says the Kangaroo Island distillery and the market still has plenty of room to grow.

“We are doing three still runs a week at the moment so we could do a couple more and if the demand is there we could get it going 24-hours,” she says.

“There is definitely room for growth in the market too but there is also education needed for people to look at what it is that they are drinking and look at where it comes from and not just go for the international brands.

“Within the city area of Adelaide and in some suburban pockets people are starting to realise what they are drinking but there’s definitely an opportunity to grow people’s appreciation of what’s made locally.”

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Grunge beats Garden Island! Cruise vision A dream has been crushed. Sydney’s cruise industry has been told emphatically that it cannot use Garden Island on Sydney Harbour as a prospective new cruise terminal – even though the idea makes sense and would delight cruise visitors to Australia. The suggested alternatives are startling.

A new official report rules out Garden Island. The two possible alternative sites for new cruise terminals are both in places that no one wants to cruise to: Molineaux Point in Port Botany or nearby Yarra Bay.

Molineaux Point separates Yarra Bay and Port Botany on the northern side of Botany Bay. It stands next to a liquid gas storage plant and is currently used for freight forwarding and transport and logistics.

Instead of being greeted by the world-renowned, magical vision of Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House, cashed up cruise visitors to Sydney would be treated under the new plan to grungy industrial views of the Kurnell oil terminal and the Port Botany container facility.

Both sites are about 16km from Circular Quay via congested roads.

Sydney badly needs a second cruise terminal east of the Harbour Bridge because new cruise ships are too big to fit under the bridge.

Garden Island, the obvious solution, is a Royal Australian Navy facility under Commonwealth control. The Navy will not let it go or share it, even though the strategic wisdom of having Australia’s biggest naval base smack in the middle of the country’s largest city has been called into question. Jervis Bay on the NSW South Coast has been suggested as an alternative (the Navy already runs the HMAS Creswell base there, 180km south of Sydney) – but the Navy will not budge.

The NSW Cruise Development Plan 2018, just released by the NSW Department of Industry, says: “Since the arrival of the Australian Fleet in October 1913, Garden Island has been the Navy’s operational home. Besides history and culture, the Navy values its use of Garden Island for operational reasons. Garden Island is an important cluster of command, technical and support facilities, including the

Captain Cook Graving Dock (the largest in the Southern Hemisphere).

“A Sydney base also offers significant advantages for recruiting and retaining sailors and officers.”

The Cruise Industry Reference Group, which has been looking at the best possible location for a new cruise terminal, recommended two Garden Island sites – Garden Island West and North-east Garden Island – for further investigation, “subject to negotiations with the Commonwealth Government”.

The NSW Cruise Development Plan 2018 kills that recommendation stone dead.

It says: “The Commonwealth Government has advised that shared use of Garden Island is not feasible. This is due to the significant challenges in managing berth space and infrastructure alongside expanding Navy operations.

“The NSW Government recognises the strategic and economic importance of Garden Island as an operational base for the Royal Australian Navy, as well as its historical and cultural value for the defence industry and community. Therefore, no sites at Garden Island will be included in the strategic



business case.”

Instead, the NSW Government will “undertake a strategic business case for two of the shortlisted sites identified by the Reference Group: Molineaux Point and Yarra Bay”.

A report by the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) showed that the cruise industry contributes in excess of AUD 5 billion to the Australian economy, AUD 3.1 billion coming from NSW.

Converting the existing Garden Island to cruise use could have injected as much as AUD 15 billion into Sydney’s economy, proponents argued. Some even said AUD 20 billion. At present, some cruise ships have to go elsewhere because they cannot be accommodated at Sydney’s White Bay or Overseas Passenger Terminal.

Now it seems the lucrative cruise ships may be shunted away from Sydney Harbour altogether to somewhere like Molineaux Point or Yarra Bay.

Other states stand to benefit, and perhaps other destinations in NSW.

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The Zeppelin Times 4CRB Travel Show...InterContinental Sanctuary Cove Resort.” Hayman closed in...

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