AusLeisure

The importance of toilets to tourism experiences has been recognised this week with the presentation of the inaugural 2017 International Toilet Tourism Awards.

Based on a premise that great toilets in tourism destinations can be talking points, encourage repeat visits and act as a positive indicator of how the host community respects tourists, award organisers Carolyn Childs and Bronwyn White of MyTravelResearch.com set out to highlight the link between toilets and tourism success.

As Childs explains “when visitors stop to spend a penny, they usually spend more than that and end up boosting the local visitor economy and creating jobs.”

Based on 30 entries, prizes have been awarded to six winners in Australia, United States and New Zealand.

The winners and winning categories are:

Best Economic Contributor - Toilets at the Southern Highlands Welcome Centre (the former Mittagong Visitor Information Centre), Main Street, Mittagong, NSW. 
Refurbished in late 2015, the makeover at the Southern Highlands Visitor Centre loos included flowers, posters, audio reel, and quirky fact stickers and free Wi-Fi. 

Since then, visitation to the centre increased from 60,000 to 72,000 2015/16. Local product sales in the SHWC have risen 19%. Regional visitor expenditure has increased from $250 million to $261 million. Visitor expenditure contribution to the region has helped sustain 2500 jobs (up 9%). And the loos and the centre have achieved a customer satisfaction rating of 93%.

Judge’s comment: “Despite a very small decorating budget for the toilets, the Southern Highlands Welcome Centre has been wonderfully innovative with their colourful, fun and informative loos concept. And this shows in the direct and indirect economic returns when visitors stop to spend a penny and then see what’s available locally.”

Best Location - Cliffhanger Loo with a View, overlooking the sea, Cobourg Peninsula, Garig Gunak Barlu National Park, Northern Territories
The toilet is on a cliff overlooking the pristine beach and waters of the Cobourg Marine Park. In the privacy of the toilet the occupant can marvel at the lagoon water ten metres below where crocodiles bask on the sand and reef sharks hunt for prey. 

The toilet is waterless, odourless and converts fresh waste into organic humus. A guest said: “It’s like watching a National Geographic documentary while sitting on the loo.”

Judge’s comment: “Cheeky, audacious, simple and environmentally sound, the cliffhanger loo has capitalized on its location perfectly and has become an attraction in itself.”

Best Design (Joint Winner): Hahei Holiday Resort, Coromandel, New Zealand
The new toilet and shower block here is part of a glamping backpacker lodge designed to personify eco beachfront coast chic using as much reused and carbon friendly products as possible. Easy access ramps with sensor lighting and native plants in an atrium lead to oversize showers and loos. The conveniences have light opaque roofing for natural light, open trusses and external gable ventilation, with plenty of recycled native timber featured, including LED lights in old beer bottles and ceramic sinks from a hospital.

Judge’s comment: “The beautiful approach to the toilet and shower block and the light and airy design using local products has made the loos at Hahei Holiday Resort an exemplary lesson in design.”

Best Design (Joint Winner): The Kathleen Buzzacott Art Studio, Alice Springs, Northern Territory
Built in 2016, the toilets were added for the convenience of tourists visiting the Studio. Buzzacott’s husband, who painted the toilets, is a traditional owner of the land. The beautiful toilets complement the stunning landscape and highlight the connection to native heritage and culture through the story-telling toilet doors, which feature indigenous central desert dot paintings.

Judge’s comment: “Unpretentious, simple and elegant. The design of these toilets perfectly complements the existing artist studio. A harmonious balance of architectural design and artistic creativity has produced this visually spectacular work of art. The building is an extension of the artist’s creative space. People pull up chairs to sit and admire the toilet doors, which tell their own Aboriginal stories.”

Quirkiest Toilet Experience - Dunnies with a Difference, the Toowoomba Portable Toilets, Toowoomba, Queensland (overall winner)
The ‘people with the orange toilets’ design and manufacture public toilets for events. Most notable is their prestige range - Dunnies with a Difference - which includes the Rustic Cottage, the London Telephone Box, Brighton Beach House, and the VIP unit. Each one includes hand sanitation, hand wash and sunscreen stations.

Judge’s comment: “The Dunnies with a Difference range transform toilets from something you hide at outdoor events into wonderful quirky attractions that add real value because they are so pretty, functional, hygienic and mobile.”

Best Accessible Toilet - Arthurs Seat Public Toilet, Arthurs Seat Park, Victoria (run by Parks Victoria)
Opened in January 2017, the toilet amenities building has been thoughtfully designed to meet the toileting needs of a diverse range of visitors to Arthurs Seat State Park such as tourists with disabilities, mobility limitations, visitors with young children, older people and tourists from culturally diverse backgrounds (for example, they include an Asian squat toilet).

Judge’s comment: “Beautifully designed; thoroughly functional, modern and inclusive; a highly impressive addition to the destination experience. I have never seen anything quite like this accessible toilet. It’s a gold star, best practice example.”

Special mention - Wisconsin Department of Tourism, USA
Wisconsin offers tourists a trio of toileting triumphs. Each 4th of July weekend at the Perkinstown Outhouse Challenge competitors race 4x4ft specially decorated outhouses round an obstacle course. It’s a race with a toilet, not to a toilet. The female bathrooms at the SafeHouse Bar & Restaurant in Milwaukee feature a portrait of a very exposed (and young) Burt Reynolds with a strategically placed red heart. If any of the ladies try to take a peek behind the heart a siren goes off alerting the whole restaurant as to who’s been inquisitive. Then there’s the ‘great wall of China’, a two-story wall made of 177 toilets stacked floor to ceiling in the Kohler Design Center, which attracts 150,000 tourists, builders and architects to its ‘Disney world of plumbing’ each year.

Judge’s comment: “Wisconsin is a destination that celebrates the power of the WC as a tourism attraction. We love the Perkinstown Outhouse Challenge with its Prettiest Potty award and TP Toss and Plunger Relay, all of which raises funds for a local recreation club.”

Prizes: The overall winner (Toowoomba Portable Toilets) will receive a $2000 donation contributed to World Toilet Day in their name and a copy of every MyTravelResearch.com research publication in 2017 (worth $8000), and access to tourism research events. Other category winners will receive the same, minus the donation to World Toilet Day.

Click here to visit MyTravelResearch.com.

Images: Toliet at the Kathleen Buzzacott Art Studio (top) and the Cliffhanger Loo with a View, Garig Gunak Barlu National Park, Northern Territories (below).

5th July 2017 - PARKS VICTORIA ACKNOWLEDGES WORK OF INDIGENOUS RANGER DURING NAIDOC WEEK

13th June 2017 - NEW ZEALAND GOVERNMENT COMMITS $5.2 MILLION FOR 28 NEW TOURISM INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECTS 

9th April 2017 - UNDERSTANDING GENERATIONAL CHANGES THE KEY TO FUTURE TOURISM SUCCESS 

22nd April 2016 - FRESH WATER VITAL TO NEW ZEALAND’S GREEN TOURISM BRAND

11th April 2016 - WELLNESS TOURISM ON THE RISE

22nd January 2016 - PENINSULA HOT SPRINGS PLANS POOLS AND ACCOMMODATION EXPANSION

3rd October 2014 - RESEARCHER IDENTIFIES KEY CHALLENGES FACING REGIONAL TOURISM

29th May 2014 - INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS ASKED TO HELP CHANGE THE IMAGE OF TOURISM

26th February 2013 - TOILETS THE ATTRACTION AT SOUTH KOREAN THEME PARK

14th November 2011 - TIANZ HIGHLIGHTS THAT TOP TOILETS ATTRACT VISITORS 

20th May 2011 - DOCTORS TO PRESCRIBE EXERCISE AS MEDICINE 

1st March 2010 - HYDROTHERAPY EXPERTISE FOR THE WORLD

Asking a small favour
We hope that you value the news that we publish so while you're here can we ask for your support?

The news we publish at www.ausleisure.com.au is independent, credible (we hope) and free for you to access, with no pay walls and no annoying pop-up ads.

However, as an independent publisher, can we ask for you to support us by subscribing to the printed Australasian Leisure Management magazine - if you don't already do so.

Published bi-monthly since 1997, the printed Australasian Leisure Management differs from this website in that it publishes longer, in-depth and analytical features covering aquatics, attractions, entertainment, events, fitness, parks, recreation, sport, tourism and venues management.

Subscriptions cost just $90 a year.

Click here to subscribe. 

Support our industry news service
We hope that you value the news that we publish so while you're here can we ask for your support?

As an independent publisher, we need reader support for our industry news gathering so ask that - if you don't already do so - you back us by subscribing to the printed Australasian Leisure Management magazine and/or our online news.