NSW Winner Tourist and Caravan Parks 2006

Trial Bay Eco Tourist Park Takes Gold

Trial Bay Eco Tourist Park won the Regional Tourism Awards in the category of the Best Holiday Park - Mid-North coast and went on to win the Tourist & Caravan Parks category at the NSW Tourism Awards which was held on Thursday 16 November 2006.  Trial Bay Eco Tourist Park’s owners Leanne and Tony Mayne were in attendance.

The tourism "night of nights" recognises and encourages excellence within the NSW tourism industry and raises the profile of NSW tourism products nationally. 

Margo Jones aptly puts it.  “The crisis of yesterday is the joke of tomorrow” and how true that is!  Tony and Leanne Mayne purchased the then called Lagoon View Caravan Park in South West Rocks in 1999.  Back then they were battling to keep the star rating of 2 stars that they had.  You name it – it was broken.  Today, as Trial Bay Eco Tourist Park, they have achieved a 4 star rating, environmental accreditation and become members of BIG4 Holiday Parks.

They took over the Lagoon View Caravan Park in September school holidays in 1999, two “sea-change” corporate flyers seeking greener pastures.  What a great idea says Leanne with tongue-in-cheek "we’ll buy a run-down caravan park, leave our well paid jobs, have a baby, move to a new town and still have time to walk hand in hand down the beach and lead a life of holiday utopia.  My husband and I didn’t sign a pre-nuptial agreement we signed a suicide pact.

When I stopped crying 18 months later and we realised what the hell we got ourselves into, we made a concerted effort to develop the park.  Tony had a vision, and with his knack for development our blank canvas became his work of art.

Our customers played a huge part in prioritising how we developed the park.  Through market research of our customer base we started to develop facilities.  There is no failure only feedback and boy did we have a lot of feedback from our customers.

Trial Bay Eco Tourist Park is now a premium holiday destination, surrounded by National Park with a feature-rich product including resort-style swimming pool, games room, holiday kids program, café/restaurant, gallery and giftware, camp kitchen, ½ court tennis court, playgrounds, powered and un-powered sites, cabins, and ensuited powered sites. 

Our biggest achievement is the response we get from our guests, who keep on returning time and time again and are amazed at what we have done over the last 7 years.  For us, this is summed up by a recent email from one of our customers in response to our first e-newsletter.

“Well, what we can say but a big CONGRATULATIONS!!  That's fantastic news about your park winning the award for Best Tourist Park on Mid North Coast.  You deserve it because we all think that is exactly what you are, simply the best!  We wouldn't drive all the way from Sydney if we didn't think so ourselves. 

Since I (Trish) has been staying at this park since I was a teenager (and that's quite a while) I'm glad my family love it as much as I did, although things were a bit different back then.  It's also nice to see my children experience the park in much the same way as I did all those years ago.  They look forward to every holiday at 'the rocks' staying at the caravan park with its activities, socialising, bike riding, pool and wildlife (just to name a few) just makes our holiday even more special.    Thank you again.” Gary, Trish, Samuel and Eliza Rosenberg

Tony and Leanne would like to dedicate the award to their daughters Georgia and Ella-rose.   Georgia was 4 days old when they took over the caravan park.   She learnt everything from toilet training to checking-in customers.  Now a healthy 7 year old going on 21, she is ready to conquer the world.  Her world is their business and she is the next generation of tourism.

The success experienced by Tony and Leanne is summed up in Walt Disney's famous saying “All our dreams can come true – if we have the courage to pursue them”.

Tony and Leanne thanked their tremendous staff at Trial Bay Eco Tourist Park, saying they were very honoured to receive the award.

Find out more about Trial Bay Eco Tourist Park.