Q Station's Eco-Conscious General Manager Simon McArthur

Located at Sydney’s North Head, Q Station (formerly the North Head Quarantine Station) is a large historic site within the Sydney Harbour National Park, five minutes from Manly. Under McArthur's direction, this unique destination has an unparrallelled sensitivity to the environment and its historic importance.

Our Manly: Thanks so much for giving us a chance to interview you. Can you tell me a little bit about your association with Q Station ?

Simon McArthur: My association began approximately ten years ago when our company was first writing the tender to compete against other operators for the lease of the site and it was my job to come up with what I call the "solve" of what the experiences were going to be about and what would give them a competitive advantage in our tender.  And the good news was that we won the tender; the bad news was it took us another eight years before we finally started the business!

OM: But you’ve been with it then pretty much from the start?

SM: That’s right. What has been developed is consistent with the original vision that we wrote in the tender documents.

OM: Now who is the "we" behind Q Station .

SM: It’s an Australian company named the Mawland Group and there is a section all about us in our website (for more info click here). Our core business is in education. We operate hotel schools for training people in a host country and also in other countries. People come from all over the world to learn the finer points of hospitality and the professionalism that hospitality needs to become more competitive. We have hotel schools here in Australia and in Asia and across the world. That’s our core business, but on the side we like to get our hands dirty on real practical projects and in particular on projects which reveal a cutting edge, test new ideas within the market place. One of those sectors is the cultural tourism sector and we’ve actually conserved and adapted a number of cultural heritage sites here in Australia to then perform strictly as a mix of some kind of accommodation, spa and conferencing. Q Station is probably the largest of the projects we’ve done in that capacity both in scale and complexity.

OM: Q Station is totally original. Tell me more about it.

OM: The rooms that visitors will stay in are actually rooms that a quarantined immigrant would have stayed in at one time?

SM: That’s exactly right.

OM: Wow, so how does that translate; how do people feel about that?

SM: Well, the people that are looking for an authentic experience are really excited by that, particularly while sitting out on the veranda and relaxing they start to get a feel for what it must have been like for people. The average stay here for today's visitors is two or three days whereas at that time the average stay was a number of weeks or perhaps even in some instances up to two months.

Today's visitors start to get a feel for the serenity of the site, they start to get a feel for the sense of reinvigoration that looking out over the harbor gives but also the sense of isolation, to some extent, that people that were once quarantined here must have felt because at that time everyone arrived by boat where as today people can arrive either by boat or by their own car. They don’t quite have the same sense of isolation but they can certainly start to get towards that because the physical sight as you look out is almost identical to the way it was when it was a quarantine station. We haven’t built any new buildings and haven’t knocked anything down.

OM: There was no penal aspect to the original quarantine station. It was just a holding place for people who were conceivably sick or exposed to something on the trip over?

SM: That’s correct. Quarantine stations were a last ditch attempt to prevent the spread of infectious diseases brought largely by immigrants coming to the country and the immigrant ships that came by and all did not have to stop at a quarantine station, they only had to stop if they had suspected contagious disease on board. For most of Australia’s history and indeed for many other countries where quarantine stations operated those sights were pretty quiet and not happening. It was just for a period of one or two or three years where there was a particular disease moving around the world. It was not like on Ellis Island which was an immigration processing point for all ships as well as a quarantine station. This site was purely activated as a need to protect the locals. You didn’t have any kind of injections to prevent diseases spreading.

OM: I’m just curious who worked at this quarantine station? I’m not imagining it was similar to people working at a leper colony, but obviously the people who worked there would have to have some fortitude.

SM: Brave people, huh?

OM: Brave people, absolutely.

SM: Basically it was a mix of government employees that were responsible for running the basic infrastructure as well as doctors and nurses that were only brought in during the period of the quarantines. You would have quite normal people operating the showers and running the basic site and looking after the quarantined people's accommodation, but because everybody from the ship got off including the crew, the crew continued to perform their function as if though it was a ship on land.

OM: Ha!

SM: The crew still had to do the cooking, still had to look after their passengers. Of course, if you were in first class you got looked after a whole lot more than if you were in third class or in steerage down on the bottom of the ship. The conditions that were present on the ship based on your class of ticket were largely replicated on land at the quarantine station. So, in some ways looking back on it now it really made sense if you could have saved a few extra dollars and traveled first class during those times in which disease was rampant. When disease was quiet you might have been more prepared to take the risk of buying the cheaper ticket. By the time of the nineteen hundreds they invented second-class travel as a result of the birth of the world's middle class.

OM: Wow, fascinating.

SM: They also had what they called an asiatic class around that time where even the third class passengers didn’t much like the idea of having to look at Asians and Indians so they put them in a level below third class so that they didn’t have to look at them and that was the roughest and toughest stuff of all.

Today the accommodation is not class based. We do have different types of rooms. Ironically, the number one thing that everyone is looking for is a view equivalent of those first class rooms which are now the ones that look straight on to the harbor

OM: Lets switch gears and look at Q Station from an environmental perspective. It’s in a national park is it not?

SM: The National Parks here are pretty much the same thing as in the 'States. In fact the second national park ever created in the world after yours (Yellowstone National Park) was here in Sydney- the Royal National Park. It’s managed by government predominately, well entirely. But that means a mixture of preservation and managed use through interpretation and education wherever possible. It also means there are more subtle objectives to achieve such as equitable access. That’s why one of the aspects where we are quite different to your average, heritage site that has had private sector involvement and become an accommodation venture or indeed an eco lodge where we aren’t just going after the top five or six star market, which is the easiest way, by the way, to create an environmentally sustainable operation, which is to just get a small number of people to pay a very large amount of money. You actually minimize your risks and maximize your income with that model.

We’re actually trying to be socially equitable as well as environmentally responsible and of course economically viable by having a range of different experiences and price points across the property. From a free visit where you actually drive into the sight on our shuttle, down to where we have our free visitor centre and some of the interesting attractions down there including inscriptions in the rocks and some interpretive signs through to education experiences that obviously have a lower cost point entry through to a range of different priced rooms. We're actually trying to achieve what I think is generally missed in sustainable tourism developments and businesses and that is the social side.


OM: What are some of the popular functions at Q Station ?

SM: At the moment the biggest profile is the fine immersion theater, which is what we’re trying to create as an iconic experience that  attracts the widest range of different types of customers . It’s an entry point experience for people. "Defiance" is composed of three stories from the past and one story set in the future and those four stories intertwine like a fairly creative film might. The theatres are in the venues where the stories really happened.

For example one is in a laundry and one's in a hospital. "Defiance" has become quite popular because it’s different; it’s really different in the sense that its not just theater where you have a couple hundred people quite detached from the actors and the set. With "Defiance" there’s only about ninety people sitting in the middle of the set, with some really, really clever audio and visual special effects, but at the same time providing an incredible sense of authenticity that the stories and the way that they are acted out are actual, real stories that happened in that very place and the power of that and I think the moral sense of activity that we’ve introduced I think has really interested people. It’s something different in Sydney and a rare case of where we’re actually sharing some of the history of Sydney in a way that’s a lot more contemplative of the future than simply reflective of the past.

OM: There is a museum on site?

SM: Yes, there is. We’ve actually split the collection of what you might typically call a museum into of course a storage area for things we just can’t display because they’re too fragile and a visitor center that displays a lot of those items that include everything from personal items that passengers had brought from quarantine station to headstones and all the industrial gear that was used to look after them in the hospitals and sterilizing their luggage and all that kind of stuff as well. We actually put our visitor center inside a building that used to be the storage facility for all the luggage that the passengers brought with them. While I waited for this project to happen over seven years I went around and collected suitcases and trunks and all sorts of other gear from the 1920’s and 30’s which we decked out the empty shelving that surrounds the visitor centre. A lot of what we’re trying to do is put missing pieces back in and I think it's that level of detail and commitment which is not typical of the private sector's commitment to most heritage sights.

OM: To that end, conservation of the site is obviously very important. Tell me about conservation and how that plays to these goals of sustainability.

SM: Conservation for us is a fundamental part of our lease. First of all there’s an agreement within the lease that enshrines us to fix the place up. We’re spending approximately four million dollars repairing and restoring the site over the first two years to bring it back to an agreed condition and secondly the lease actually has a very detailed plan attached to it of ongoing maintenance and conservation work to keep it that way so the first public benefit from this involvement is the fact that the lease has a contractual document guaranteeing to the public that the site is actually being conserved to an agreed standard as long as the lease goes. Whereas if you look at a government property, it’s only as good as each year's allocation of funds.

The second thing that happens is that we have a monitoring system across the entire site based on two hundred and twenty two indicators across the natural, social and cultural environment that we’re continuously monitoring and reporting on publicly- as to the condition of the site and the quality of the visitor experience and the perceptions of the local community, the perceptions of our key stake holders, as to how the whole thing's going and all of those indicators have bench marks and what we call acceptable range which is what we’d like that range to look like. Every single one of those indicators also has a collection of adaptive administrative responses which are lined up and ready to go and funded in the event that any of our indicators suggest a deterioration outside of that acceptable range that’s considered by the World Tourism Organization as one of the world's leading examples of sustainable management. Because it's not only the conservation work and the planning work that  we’re doing but we’re actually keeping in check all the time what we’re supposed to be doing and that we are ready to respond with pre-agreed responses should anything go wrong.

Beyond that we have an extensive array of minimal impact programs which begins with our induction program of a day and a half for staff which takes them through an extensive introduction of the natural and cultural history of the site and how they can minimize their impact in all the different sorts of areas in which they work. Whether they’re in maintenance or in food and beverage or in guiding. That minimal impact code is transferred into guest check-in procedure or the day visitor introduction within the shuttle and the ferry that we operate through to actual interpretation within the experiences we offer.

We are also operating at considerable expense water based access to minimize the potential impact of our visitors arriving by vehicle at night and knocking down wildlife which is a major consideration for us. We found that to minimize the chances of that occurring and also to maximize the possibility of people having a really good quality experience arriving by water is superior to driving in a crowded road system like Sydney's.

We have a sustainable environment policy which guides everything from our waste management system, water conservation systems and our energy conservation systems. We’ve implementing one of the very first ever solar panel systems fed into a heritage building which actually disappears into the roof structure. It doesn’t stand out like your old solar panels used to. It's actually curved into the corrugated iron roof system and we’re actually about to introduce the form of water system that was ripped out when the whole site got connected to the main water system. We’re collecting all the water off all of the roofs and we’re redistributing it into habitats that will increase the wildlife populations that require quite wet ground as opposed to dry which as typical around here.

OM: Wow.

SM: Just to name a few things... twenty cents on every single dollar that is collected as revenue is reinvested into the conservation of this site or through rent to the national park service for reinvestment into the rest of Sydney Harbor National Park.

Our rent has been calculated independently on behalf of the government to make sure that it’s a commercial rent. It’s not a peppercorn giveaway rent.

Not only have we invested such a large amount of money repairing the sight and continuing to maintain it to an agreed state, but we’re also making enough money to support the conservation of other heritage sites in the national park that aren’t as lucky to have a lease operating to fund them.

OM: Sometimes a people can love a place to death especially a very pristine place. How do you mitigate just the sheer carbon cost of people visiting? Australia’s a long way away for global visitors; people have got to get there usually on an airplane and then they come out to Q Station, maybe they take a Jet Cat or a ferry or they drive. How does that factor into this idea of sustainable tourism, the actual carbon cost of traveling? I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but it’s a serious consideration.

SM: It’s a consideration, but its blown out of proportion. On an attraction versus transport operator the obligation is far greater in terms of carbon emissions on the transport operator than it is on us and the decision to come to Australia to visit is not typically generated by us. We have a public transport system which significantly reduces people’s need to drive here.

The water based access, the boat shuttle, immediately reduces the transport carbon emissions that people would make. We also market the public transport system within our website and we provide a free shuttle system to the local transport system in Manly where we pick people up who have prepared to take public transport and bring them up for free to the site.

I think the reuse of an existing heritage site as opposed to the construction of a new tourism facility is an example of the minimization of energy and materials required because we're actually using an existing resource rather than constructing a new one and I think that that has not been typically taken into account in carbon trading. Coming back to you earlier point about loving a place to death- because we are not actually an attraction that is operating with a lot of turnover, we’re not attracting the number of people a similar sized and significant cultural site in Australia, like Port Author down in the bottom of Australia, which attracts 350,000 visitors a year. Our forecast is to attract only 120,000 visitors a year so our model is to actually get a smaller number of visitors to come, but to spend more money across a wider range of experiences. So, the carbon output of that visitor coming here compared with an attraction where they might only stay for two hours I would argue that would be a lot more favorable because the length of stay and the conservation and the twenty cents dollar output from those people is far greater.

The newer model fits sustainability better than the turnover model.

OM: What would you suggest would be the ideal duration of a visit? What’s your ideal itinerary for the casual visitor?

SM: For the leisure market I would say a two night stay. They would start off with "Defiance" on the first night, then we have a very interesting interactive experience during the day, but they’d probably spend the rest of the day chilling out, enjoying some of the recreation activities and facilities that we have or just walks for relaxation. I’d suggest on the second day they’d probably take an amazing walk through the park. It takes about a half day and we can pick them up from one end or the other by boat. Then I’d say it's time for the spa.

On a return visit I’d actually say that the peak experience would be a two to three day spa program such as a de-stresser or detox.
 
The ultimate experience is to stay for several days and get immersed in the educational health programs, to interpret the site as an opportunity for empowerment. Historically, people were forced to stay here and stayed here in fear and most of them were simply happy to escape with their lives. For the people who come here in the future, they choose to come here to become educated as to how they can empower themselves to live a healthier, happier life and leave feeling truly invigorated. That’s an amazing outcome in comparison with its historic use.

OM: Thank you, Simon. Your dedication is impressive. Q Station, and the Mawland Group are obviously doing unique things with a historically significant institution. Our Manly is definitely impressed with the innovative sustainability strategies you've put in place.

SM:  I really appreciate that. This is my passion. We’re really trying to hire people that have some environmental credentials and some environmental ethos and it starts with the GM having those types of qualifications. That’s a really good indication, I think, of our commitment to the environment and to really try to demonstrate to people that there are other ways to do it, not just one single way that everyone should adopt. The process of becoming sustainable is to look at different options, weigh them in terms of what makes the most sense to your particular situation and craft something that fits that really well. I think that because we are in Sydney, in a national park, in a heritage site, all at the same time, we are positioned to be a really valuable education tool.

OM: Good luck and thanks for an enlightening interview.

 

Interviewed by Paul Oscar Hamilton