A farm stay business can be flexible in its design. Working out the scale of the business, which visitors you want to attract, and the number of on-site activities is up to you. Remember:
- Being a happy host contributes enormously to the visitor’s level of satisfaction
- Know the region’s visitor profile and work out what type of visitor you would like to attract
- Offer additional experiences to encourage greater visitor spend. Design your experiences around what your target market is likely to enjoy
- Be clear with your expectations of visitors to ensure a greater satisfaction level for both the host and visitor
Creating the experience
Happiness is key
Your key priority is to involve yourself in a business that makes you happy. However it’s also important to focus on visitor experience. Your long-term success will depend on your enthusiasm and capacity to:
- Create a memorable and enjoyable visitor experience
- Manage your time between the tourism business, visitor experiences, personal lifestyle and commitments to a working farm or cattle station
- Put resources towards marketing and growing a successful venture
If your visitors are happy, your business is likely to grow through word-of-mouth referrals and online reviews of their stay.
Every visitor is different
There may be times when guests have limited interest in the activities or services you’re offering. Other guests may expect you to fill their time with unique experiences.
The key to navigating the range of expectations is to have flexibility, patience, and tolerance, so factor this in when planning host-visitor interactions. For example you may create an experience that has minimal involvement with visitors and offers them solitude and privacy, or you may offer an activity-packed adventure where there is more interaction with you.
Knowing your target market
As a farm stay owner you need to know who your target market is, that is the type of people you want to attract.
Local, Regional and State Tourism Organisations set broad tourism priorities, including what segment of travellers they are actively seeking to attract. Leverage off their influence and ability to draw visitors to the area to assist your farm stay to flourish.
Regional Queensland is very much geared up to attracting High Value Travellers (HVTs) and holiday drive markets.
HVTs spend more than the average traveller, stay longer and are interested in the types of leisure experiences that Queensland has to offer.
They make up a significant portion of travellers to Queensland representing 35% of interstate leisure trips and contributing 63% of the total expenditure from these trips. HVTs can be categorised into three main groups:
- Travelling with children
- 18-49 travelling without children
- 50+ travelling without children
Source: Tropical North Queensland Destination Tourism Plan 2021
The drive tourism market generated $9 billion in overnight visitor expenditure for Queensland in 2023, projected to rise to $12 billion by 2032.
Source: Tourism and Events Queensland Drive Tourism Marketing Strategy 2032
Tourism Tropical North Queensland markets heavily towards drive tourism, which by nature attracts the over 50’s market and families.
To learn more visit the TTNQ website.
Activities and attractions
Many farm stay visitors seek a variety of activities, attractions, or experiences during their stay. These activities can be a viable upselling opportunity for your business, enabling you to capture greater visitor spend (as visitors will tend to stay longer and spend more).
You may choose to simply offer a comfortable place to stay with no extra activities. This option might suit you if your farm is near a major drive route or tourist attraction and offers a convenient stopover, or you don’t have capacity to provide other activities.
Some farms have their own natural attractions and offer self-guided walks, sightseeing and wildlife watching which visitors can enjoy on their own.
ACTION: Talk to other operators to find out what they are doing in this space and draw inspiration for your farm.
An experience to remember
Your farm stay’s experiences are limited only by your imagination and the amount of time you can dedicate to your business. Some examples are provided below.
- Farm tours
- Wildlife watching
- Historical tours
- Mustering activities (horses, quadbikes, helicopter)
- Fishing and kayaking
- Farm tours
- Homemade cooking
- Short-term work as a farm or station hand
- Mountain bike and walking tracks
ACTION: Make a list of activities or experiences you could offer on your farm stay.
Indigenous experiences
State, regional and local tourism organisations are actively working to position the Gulf Savannah Region as Australia’s leading Indigenous Tourism destination. In fact the Queensland government has invested heavily providing $10 million in funding across Queensland in 2020-2021 to support Indigenous tourism development.
More and more visitors are seeking Indigenous tourism experiences as part of their travel, which might include cultural tours, food experiences, and fishing.
If you’re keen to explore the opportunity to link your farm stay to local Indigenous tourism experiences reach out to GSD or TTNQ who can help you to collaborate with Traditional Owners in your region.
Your business vision
With all of this in mind, you can start to piece together a vision for your farm stay business – that is a clear and inspiring statement of what you hope to achieve for your farm stay long term. It highlights your aspirations, inspirations and motivations.
The Business Queensland website has useful tools to help you develop your business vision.
https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/planning/vision
ACTION: Develop your business vision using the Business Queensland toolkit.
Guidelines and policies
Guidelines and policies are an important part of your farm stay as they provide clear rules for the farm stay and set you up for success. The following list provides examples of policies and guidelines you will need to develop for your business.
ACTION: Review each section and write down what policy or guideline you would put in place.
Consider how many guests you can accommodate at any one time, types of room configurations, and whether children are welcome.
Provide an easy booking system for your guests to improve the overall experience. You should consider:
- Setting up an online booking system to make bookings easy for you and the visitor
- Whether a deposit is required on booking
- Whether to apply cancellation fees for changes to bookings or no shows
- How visitors can make payments (credit card, transfers, online, by phone etc)
Specify check in and check out times for visitors, and the process if visitors arrive for a late check in. Will you leave keys in a safety box for example.
Consider if you will allow pets on your property, what types of pets are allowed, and restrictions such as where pets can go on the property, and whether can they be left alone in accommodation.
Tell visitors if your farm has restricted areas, or if they can move around freely. You may decide to keep your own home as a restricted access area for greater privacy
If you offer other activities, plan the minimum and maximum number of people you can host on a tour and how much you will charge, including any discounts for multiple bookings. Consider how far in advance visitors need to book, and what the booking process is.
Decide if you will offer meals such as breakfast, lunch and dinner, what times meals are served, and whether you will deliver meals to rooms or serve them in a dining room.
Consider whether kitchen or cooking facilities will be required.
If you decide to serve alcohol, specify your licence number and what restrictions apply such as the times alcohol can be served.