Overlooking the southern side of Wilpena Pound, Rawnsley Park Station provides the perfect base for exploring South Australia's beautiful Flinders Ranges. Over the 40 years that the Smith family has been operating there, Rawnsley Park has developed from a small family business into a tourism resort with an extensive range of accommodation and visitor experiences for both domestic and international visitors. We spoke with the Smith family to learn more about the family business and how they made tourism in the Flinders Ranges more attractive to international visitors.
Tell us about your business?
We operate tourism businesses at Rawnsley Park Station in the Flinders Ranges and Barossa Shiraz Estate in the Barossa Valley. Rawnsley Park Station has a commercial flock of 1500 Dohne Merino sheep. However, the pastoral activities have now been overtaken by the tourism operations as the principal family business.
We can be considered a second generation business: Tony and Julie have overseen the business development for 40 years and their three sons (Greg, Glenn & Nev) became Directors in 2021.
What has been your greatest success?
The greatest success of the business has been developing the tourism product in the Flinders Ranges and in the Barossa Valley to be attractive to international visitors. This process really accelerated from 2006 when we developed the first straw bale Luxury Ecovillas at Rawnsley Park Station. The Ecovillas are built on a secluded site with superb views of the surrounding ranges. The combination of natural environment and understated luxury has been well accepted by both domestic and international visitors. In 2017, we purchased Barossa Shiraz Estate to add a luxury accommodation option for visitors to the Barossa Valley.
What do you value about FBA?
We joined FBA in 2019 in order to learn from the experience of other family businesses in negotiating the transition of the family business to the next generation. Tony, Julie, Greg, Glenn and Nev made the decision 10 years ago to develop a Family Constitution and a Family Business Ownership Structure. This was a prolonged process which culminated in 2021 with the new ownership and constitution for the business.
We were happy with the business structure we developed, but felt that we needed to better understand the family business models that have worked in real life situations.
In 2021 Tony joined an FBA Forum Group and the following year, Julie joined a different Forum Group. We have found the Forum Groups to be really helpful in understanding how other families deal with the pressures and demands in a family business. Perhaps the biggest learning experience has been the opportunity to see and hear from family members at different stages in the family hierarchy.
Learn more about Rawnsley Park Tourism
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