From the ashes: The role of solidarity in Binna Burra’s tourism recovery

After a dev­ast­at­ing fire fol­lowed by glob­al pan­dem­ic, the ongo­ing recov­ery of Binna Burra Lodge in Queens­land, Aus­tralia was­n’t pos­sible without the sup­port of people near and far who feel a con­nec­tion to the place, its his­tory, and its land­scape. The story illus­trates the power and value of good­will, an intan­gible asset that mani­fes­ted at Binna Burra as ‘solid­ar­ity tour­ism’. Steve Noakes tells it in this “Good Tour­ism” Insight.

On Septem­ber 8, 2019, at the begin­ning of six months of what became known as Aus­trali­a’s ‘Black Sum­mer’ bush­fires, the his­tor­ic Binna Burra Lodge and pion­eer cab­ins (built in the 1930s) were des­troyed. They took with them the jobs of 60 staff, most of whom had to be retrenched, as well as 4,000 for­ward book­ings, most of which had to be refunded. 

Offices, com­puters, phone lines, and most records were des­troyed. The busi­ness was gone. But sup­pli­ers still needed their invoices paid. Ter­min­ated staff had to be paid out their indi­vidu­al enti­tle­ments. Even the tax office deman­ded its sched­uled payments. 

Also see Sonia Beck­with’s “GT” Insight
“What to keep, change, do in a crisis (and why we should give a sh*t)”

And des­pite the online and off­line media bom­bard­ment that had to be man­aged, it still took about six months to get the single road access through the World Her­it­age-lis­ted Lam­ing­ton Nation­al Park restored before the demoli­tion and rebuild­ing work could even start.

At the time of the dis­aster, the imme­di­ate response and recov­ery phases were para­mount. For a tour­ism enter­prise, recov­ery from such a dis­aster is not a short-term pro­cess. It requires many years of engage­ment, fin­an­cial sup­port, and encour­aging cus­tom­ers to return. 

Com­pound­ing the struggle, only a few months into Binna Bur­ra’s recov­ery, COVID became a glob­al pandemic.

A year after the bush­fire, the remain­ing vis­it­or assets, includ­ing the Sky Lodges, the Safari tents, the camp­ground, and the Binna Burra Tea House, were able to recom­mence oper­a­tions and get the busi­ness going again; with a COV­ID-safe man­age­ment plan in place as required by the Queens­land Gov­ern­ment Health Department.

What is solidarity tourism?

An oppor­tun­ity we iden­ti­fied in the ashes of the dis­aster, as mes­sages of love and sup­port flooded in, was the concept of ‘solid­ar­ity tour­ism’. Solid­ar­ity tour­ism per­tains to an eth­ic for trav­el­ling to sup­port a par­tic­u­lar des­tin­a­tion or busi­ness that has a strong envir­on­ment­al or social mission. 

A long way from Queens­land, Aus­tralia, in Boston, USA, cul­tur­al tour­ism expert Meg Pier wrote that the dev­ast­a­tion at Binna Burra Lodge inspired the notion of ‘solid­ar­ity tour­ism’. Binna Burra “provides power­ful les­sons in the mean­ing of the term ‘cul­tur­al land­scape’ and how that des­ig­na­tion is inex­tric­ably inter­woven with the phe­nomen­on of community”.

Indeed Binna Burra’s con­tinu­ing recov­ery from the heart­break­ing and seem­ingly insur­mount­able dis­aster is in no small part due to the day and overnight vis­it­ors who came — as soon as they could — to exper­i­ence the spec­tac­u­lar land­scape of the World Her­it­age-lis­ted Lam­ing­ton Nation­al Park. 

Also see Tom Allen’s “GT” Insight
“Los­ing Lut­ruwita: Troubles in Tasmania’s World Her­it­age wilderness”

“Vis­it­ors got more than they expec­ted,” accord­ing to Meg Pier. “They forged a bond not only with the place, but with its his­tory, its people, and with each other.”

Even in this era of the COVID-19 glob­al pan­dem­ic, our ‘solid­ar­ity tour­ism mar­kets’ — from the fam­il­ies who have pat­ron­ised Binna Burra for gen­er­a­tions to new friends who have sup­por­ted Binna Burra since its reopen­ing in Septem­ber 2020 — have been vital con­trib­ut­ors to our ongo­ing recov­ery after the disaster.

What do you think? Share a short anec­dote or com­ment below. Or write a deep­er “GT” Insight. The “Good Tour­ism” Blog wel­comes diversity of opin­ion and per­spect­ive about travel & tour­ism because travel & tour­ism is everyone’s business.

Fea­tured image (top of post): Sun­set from the Binna Burra Lodge ter­race. Image sup­plied by author.

About the author

Steve Noakes lives near the World Her­it­age-lis­ted Lam­ing­ton Nation­al Park in Queens­land, Aus­tralia. It’s where the Binna Burra Moun­tain Lodge, for which he is Chair, is loc­ated. Mr Noakes has been involved in the travel & tour­ism industry for more 40 years. He foun­ded Pacific Asia Tour­ism, an inter­na­tion­al pro­ject man­age­ment com­pany focused on tourism’s capa­city to con­trib­ute to the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals and to the Glob­al Code of Eth­ics for Tour­ism. And he is a dir­ect­or/­part-own­er of Eco­lodges Indone­sia & Eco­Sa­fari Indone­sia, which oper­ate Indone­sian lodges and inbound tours with a wild­life and biod­iversity focus.