Awards Win for Rainbow Pines Tourist Caravan Park
Huge Congratulations to Rainbow Pines for their recent success, in winning the CIAA Award of Excellence for Inland Park (100 Sites or less)
Rainbow Pines are a new addition to Family Parks’ in the last few months, and both Rick and Kerry have been wonderful parkies since day one!
Thoroughly well deserved – read the lovely interview that Kerry had featured in the press here:
The NSW Caravan and Camping Industry Association (CCIA) recently celebrated the best in the business, announcing the winners of the 2015 Awards of Excellence on Wednesday October 14. The awards showcase standout holiday parks and residential communities, quality dealerships and service providers, and NSW manufacturing excellence.
Rainbow Pines Tourist Caravan Park in Adaminaby won the award for Best Inland Park- 100 sites or less.
Rick Martin and Kerry Parrott have owned the lease from Crown Lands for the caravan park for ten years, and didn’t expect to collect the top honours.
“We didn’t really expect to get this far, let alone win it. But we are very excited, it’s just great,” said Kerry.
The couple bought the park after selling their Newcastle-based trucking business, and hitting the road in Kerry’s parents’ caravan. They journeyed south into the Snowys, an area they had both visited and loved as children. Once they arrived, they immediately knew that they had found their new home. The rest, as they say, is history.
No one was more surprised than Kerry to find herself the owner of a caravan park. Her parents owned a caravan park and she never expected to do the same.
“On a number of occasions, Mum and Dad tried to gift the caravan park to both my brother and I individually,” recalls Kerry.
Owning a caravan park is a big responsibility, and people often don’t realise the amount of work that goes into its operation, says Kerry.
“People say ‘Oh I’d love to retire to a caravan park’, like it’s a walk in the park, and we say ‘we’ll sell it to you then!” laughs Kerry.
In truth, the team loves their caravan park and are have received many positive reviews from happy customers, achieving a 4.5/5 rating on Trip Advisor.
“We’re proud of our park. Over the past 10 years, we have transformed a run-down park into a thriving and popular business which attracts around 15,000 visitors a year” says Kerry.
The Awards of Excellence were determined by a number of criteria, focusing on demonstrating excellent customer service prior to arrival, during the stay and after the customers had departed. The judging panel consisted of industry representatives from the Park and Trade sectors. Rick completed most of the application, and said it was quite extensive.
“The final step included a Skype interview where independent bodies asked us questions. We were expected to prepare three 20-minute answers on different categories. She asked us one that wasn’t on our list and we said ‘hang on, we haven’t prepared for that one!’ Luckily it was about training we’ve undertaken, and I suspect our answer helped us secure the win,” said Rick.
The couple has completed a significant amount of online training through CCIA, and believes in the value of continuous development.
“It’s important to constantly better yourself and make improvements,” said Rick.
18 months ago, the park was also recognised with a Bronze Gumnut Award, an environmental rating system for holiday parks. To achieve this award, the couple made a number of improvements including an aeration system for black and grey water treatment, a compost system which acts as a breeding ground for worms for bait during the trout fishing season, encouraging guests to use recycling and initiated a woodchip area for timber felled on the park.
“We were pleased to start that process and will work to achieve Silver and Gold standards in the future,” stated Rick.
Rainbow Pines Tourist Caravan Park is nestled on the shores of beautiful Lake Eucumbene with a backdrop of the picturesque Snowy Mountains. The park offers both cabins and campsites, and boasts excellent trout fishing in both the lake and Kosciuszko National Park streams.
Theo Whitmont, President of NSW CCIA, says caravanning and camping in NSW continues to bring a great amount of tourism prosperity to NSW.
“NSW is the most popular caravan and camping destination in Australia, attracting more than 2.2 million domestic caravan and camping visitors each year. These awards are celebrating that success,” said Mr Whitmont.
“Each year we have an extensive collection of entries for our Awards of Excellence program, and it really showcases the fantastic caravan, camping and land lease living experiences that exist in NSW.”
Take a look at our listing for Rainbow Pines Tourist Caravan Park to find out more!