Tears have been shed by staff of a Sunshine Coast tour company that endured desperate measures through COVID lockdowns to be recognised as one of Australia’s top five most outstanding tour operators.
Chimu Adventures, with offices in Mooloolaba and Sydney, operates tours to Antarctica and South America, and will learn on Saturday night if it wins the Most Outstanding Tour Operator gong at the prestigious AFTA National Travel Industry Awards.
For management and staff, even being nominated is an honour.
“It’s huge for us – massive. It would be big for any tour operator even to be nominated. But to be a finalist, we’ve made the top five … I’m getting a bit emotional,” Meg Hall, the company’s marketing manager, said.
The company was forced into overdrive some three years ago when the pandemic struck and international borders closed, which left clients stranded in foreign lands and a business model that appeared unworkable.
Ms Hall was moved almost to tears when she revealed how taxing and trying the past years have been.
“It’s really been a tough couple of years just to stay afloat … we dug really deep … we’ve just been scrambling to stay afloat and in operation,” she said.
With borders locked down, the first major challenge was getting Chimu’s customers back home.
“The borders weren’t only closed in Australia, they were closed in South America as well, so we really had to try hard to get our clients home. All the flights were stopped … everyone was stranded, so we ended up having to charter some jets to bring them back,” Ms Hall explained.
“The fact that we were already navigating closed borders overseas was one thing, but also the airports were closed. So, we had to get governments involved, we had to get the military involved – we opened up military airports to have these planes leave.
“It was huge. We had to really discover skills that we didn’t even know we had, that we didn’t even know existed in our operation, and we got them (customers) home safely, and not only that, we operated the first repatriation flights into Australia.”
Once the customers were safely back home, the second challenge was finding a way to remain in business.
The solution was to introduce scenic flights over the Antarctic, giving travellers an up-close view of the mysterious Aurora Australis.
“Essentially, our business overnight had become defunct. It didn’t exist anymore,” Ms Hall said.
“We said, ‘We’re not going to sit here and lie down and die’ … so we tried to find another way that still really fitted with our brand.
“We came up with these amazing scenic flights that we’ve been operating, which kept us not just in hibernation but actually functioning as tour operators for the last couple of years.
“Very few people in the world have seen the Aurora Australis … to actually go down and see them from underneath, outside the windows of a Dreamliner, was something that certainly commercial travellers had never done before.
“To be able to keep travellers actually seeing something amazing while also being trapped behind borders has been what’s helped us achieve this award nomination.”
The idea was ingenious. The flights departed and arrived in Australia, so were technically classed as domestic flights.
“These operations could work from within closed borders,” Ms Hall explained.
“Our states also started closing the borders. That didn’t matter because if you lived in Sydney, you were going to leave from Sydney and go down and see the southern lights, or go and see Antarctica and return, and stay within your own state as well.
“We were still giving trips of a lifetime. We had people breaking down in tears with some of the things they saw outside their windows. So, to be recognised as one of the most outstanding operators in Australia for those tasks that we undertook and executed is huge to us.”
With border restrictions now mostly lifted, the company is “super excited” to be again operating in Latin America and Antarctica.
However, as for the past years, the staff will learn on Saturday night if their efforts have helped them win the major tour operator award.
“I feel like we’ve already won – whether we become number one or remain in the top five, it’s almost irrelevant,” Ms Hall explained.
“It’s really nice to be recognised for those things we have done.”
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