Tall Timbers - John Dabner

"From a wholesale point of view, it’s cheaper for operators because they’re not paying expensive commissions."

It’s taken just over two decades to create Tall Timbers—an award winning, multi-faceted tourism operation on Tasmania’s far north-west coast.

Fringed by exquisite coastline and deep forest wilderness, Tall Timbers combines a hotel, extensive accommodation, dining, conference spaces and a retail bottle shop. It is also the base for touring experiences in the rugged beauty of a place known as the Edge of the World.

For General Manager John Dabner, it’s quite a balancing act. At the time of this interview, one of the balls he was juggling in this skilful performance was establishing an integrated online system for his business.

‘We’ve been online for about two years—through our membership of the Innkeepers Collection. I’ve been working with inventory sites for the same amount of time and I use a channel manager called Site Minder.

‘Before going online we had a reservations system, but allotments and inventory were all done manually, which was very time consuming.

‘My property management system had no connection to Site Minder, so I was doing a lot of double handling and a lot of work. I was also running the risk of overbooking through peak times, so to prevent that I was blocking out through busy times, which wasn’t ideal.

‘As well as accommodation, we have a point of sale system for our bottle shop and retail operation, so I really needed a system where my POS and reservations systems could talk to each other.’

To address these issues, John made the decision to integrate all of his online systems. 

‘I’ve done a lot of research and have chosen systems that I hope will work well for this business.

‘I’m aiming for a fully integrated system. I’m spending the money to put in a system for this reason, so if it can’t integrate the way I want there’s no point using it.’

John’s online approach extends through all elements of his operation, beyond accommodation bookings.

‘About a month ago, I also put our tour operations on my own website, which then links to Innkeepers so they have access to the tour product as well. People can now book those direct, online through my website.’

John is also the Chairman of the region’s tourism association, Circular Head Tourism. He firmly believes that online business is as essential and effective for smaller operators as larger scale businesses.

‘The Visitor Centre in this region has signed up to V3 and will encourage smaller operators to look at the next level as well—because if you haven’t got bookable product you just miss out.

‘From a wholesale point of view, it’s cheaper for operators because they’re not paying expensive commissions.

‘A lot of operators have a website, but there’s no bookable product on it which is a waste—all you have is an online brochure. You have to market your site properly.’

John points to international trends in the tourism industry to reinforce his point.

‘60-70% of tourism product in the United States is booked online and that’s growing. It’s the same in Australia and I know that if I’m not in that space I’ll miss out.

‘I think it’s a must.’