Lessons in resilience: Binna Burra’s rise from the ashes
Despite a devastating wildfire in September 2019 and the global pandemic that followed, Australia’s Binna Burra Lodge is open for business. Drawing from that recovery story, Jonathon Day shares five lessons in resilience that any tourism business can apply.
It’s a “Good Tourism” Insight. [You too can write a “GT” Insight.]
On September 8, 2019, a bushfire all but destroyed one of Australia’s iconic ecolodges.
Binna Burra Lodge’s recovery, despite the additional challenges of the pandemic, provides important lessons for disaster preparedness and resilience.
The bushfire that impacted Binna Burra Lodge was part of a season of bushfires that raged across Australia in the summer of 2019/20.
They burned more than 17 million hectares.
Following the driest year on record, the severity of the bushfire season is partially attributed to climate change.
Ecotourism products, like Binna Burra, are particularly vulnerable to climate change.
The impacts of climate change on our natural environment can be gradual — as ecosystems adapt to warmer temperatures and changing precipitation — or they can be immediate and catastrophic because of extreme weather.
Binna Burra Lodge is located within the Lamington National Park in southern Queensland, Australia. Lamington National Park, one of the national parks of the Gondwana Rainforests World Heritage area, is temperate rainforest.
The region is recognised for its “outstanding biodiversity”, and the Binna Burra Lodge experience of access into the national park is internationally renowned.
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In some ways, Binna Burra Lodge holds a unique position. It is an ecotourism enterprise operating in a developed country, with infrastructure and institutional support not available to many ecotourism businesses.
Despite these advantages, it still faced significant challenges. On receiving news of the damage, the international The Guardian newspaper published an obituary.
Two years on — and despite the global pandemic — Binna Burra Lodge is once again welcoming guests.
There are lessons to be learned from Binna Burra’s experience these last few years that can be applied to any tourism business. Here are five: … continue reading this “GT” Insight in full and for free. There are many like it at The “Good Tourism” Blog.
