Outback tourism Cunnamulla style

Peieta cemented her confidence in outback tourism 14 years ago when she founded the tour company ‘Out the Back Australia’ which offered tourists a variety of tour packages throughout the district. 

With her business, Peieta, was outsourcing the accommodation component, so six years ago she threw her confidence further into outback tourism expansion and took the next step to provide accommodation and bought the closed Club Hotel.

The Club Hotel was once a thriving business in the days when the town rode on the back of the thriving Merino wool industry.  

“It had been closed for five years, and was in pretty bad shape, but it came with a liquor licence,” Peieta said.

With a massive injection of capital into renovating the building, Peieta has built a successful accommodation and hospitality service to her existing business.  

Guests staying at the Club Boutique Hotel have a choice of an inviting range of rooms or glamping tents to suit their needs. 

“Tourism out here is a major industry that is developing more and more, and every business in town is trying to get their share, so everything we do – we do differently”, she said. 

“With limited accommodation in Cunnamulla, we have had to look at ways to be different,” Peieta said.

“We manage the Club Hotel for our guests to really feel at home, and we have built up a good client base with our accommodation.

“However, staffing is a major issue and we outsource where we can, in terms of laundry. 

“We don’t use backpackers as we find they don’t fit with our business. 

“We find if we want really good staff we nearly have to bring locals out of their retirement.”

Her right hand helper is her sister-in-law Carla who handles the accommodation bookings and the accounts and payments.  

Another different aspect is the Club Boutique Hotel offers its’ own brand of craft beer.

“We have five varieties and the range is called ‘Cunnamulla Characters’ named after local legends and this will increase to 11 varieties by June 2019.

One variety is named after local legendary horse trainer the infamous late Cocky Easton, who was a brilliant horseman and lovable rogue. He wrote his name into the history books and became famous throughout Australia in 1961 after taking all seven races at a meeting in Cunnamulla, and it is still a record.

With Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk declaring 2019 the Year of Outback Tourism, Cunnamulla tourist operator, Peieta is confident of the future.

Ms Palaszczuk said tourism is vital to the outback’s future and this funding will help ensure infrastructure needed to create more tourism jobs for the future can be delivered. 

“From Mt Isa to Cunnamulla – we’re investing in projects that we know will lure more tourists to the Queensland outback,” she said.

And Peieta is ready to service the perceived demand, adding 10 glamping tents in the garden at the rear of the Club Boutique Hotel and will have them operating by the tourist season. 

“These tents have been trailed throughout last season with excellent feedback from guests and the unique accommodation option has been fine-tuned and perfected,” she said.

The Cub Boutique Hotel also offers nine hotel rooms offering guests a variety of options, with a mixture of five fully en-suited hotel suites and four hotel rooms that share a spacious lounge and bathroom area.