This week marks a very sweet sixteen years since Southern Ocean Lodge first opened its rust red doors on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island to one of the most jaw-dropping ‘moments of arrival’ to a luxury lodge in Australia. March 29, 2008, was a moment that would signal a dramatic new benchmark for the future of luxury experiential tourism in Australia and set the foundations for the 19-member strong Luxury Lodges of Australia collection.
Baillie Lodges founders James and Hayley Baillie created their flagship property Southern Ocean Lodge from concept and planning, through building, opening and operating. The luxury property was cleverly set halfway between Kangaroo Island’s iconic natural icons, Flinders Chase National Park and Seal Bay Conservation Park which had historically been covered off in one-day tours covering long distances on Australia’s third largest island.
Southern Ocean Lodge offered travellers reason to stay longer on Kangaroo Island, to stay as guests and discover more of the destination, its landscapes, people and abundant native wildlife – a game changer for Kangaroo Island and South Australian tourism.
Essential to the guest experience at Southern Ocean Lodge was a very real sense of place, created by an almost exclusively local policy regarding suppliers, which would in turn work to support the community and its economy. A steady demand for supplies offered viability for new small businesses to set up for the future.
From the outset, the lodge team worked with a local architect and tradespeople, suppliers and producers, shining a light on Kangaroo Island’s food and beverages, artists and designers and premium tour operators to a world stage.
An exclusively local approach to food and drink suppliers is de rigueur in 2024, but in 2008 this approach, shared by several other notable lodges, was a shift away from celebrating more global brands and products. In the sixteen years of Southern Ocean Lodge’s operations the diversity and volume of small batch, locally grown produce, wines, beers and non-alcoholic drinks has proliferated.
Southern Ocean Lodge signalled the emergence of a new breed of luxury lodge in Australia, offering a heightened level of experiential tourism that combined clever design that welcomed the outside in, as well as meticulous attention to detail celebrating everything local in every aspect of the lodge – dining, art, spa, service. And importantly, an itinerary of personally guided signature experiences of the destination.
The lodge’s success was on a global scale and was both immediate and sustained. This new breed of high-end experience tourism was part of the genesis for the Luxury Lodges of Australia collection, founded in 2010 and bringing together a small group of carefully selected, geographically independent luxury lodges that each shared an essential DNA in its approach to the guest experience and the community and environment in which each was located.
In late 2023, Southern Ocean Lodge reopened as a gamechanger in a new era, following its recreation and four-year rebuild after it was razed in the 2020 summer wildfires. The elements that had made the lodge so popular were returned in precise replica, while the redesign and a decade’s worth of technological advancements offered the Baillie Lodges team a chance to make significant upgrades to its sustainable operations, boosting its solar power generation, rain- and bore-water capture, remote controlled sprinkler systems and planting a 20-metre buffer of native succulents to aid with fire prevention.
Luxury Lodges of Australia Executive Chair Penny Rafferty said the return of Southern Ocean Lodge to the beautifully wild south coast of Kangaroo Island marked a second era for the luxury property as a gamechanger for the Australian tourism industry. “It was a gamechanger then, and it is a gamechanger now.”
“On behalf of our Luxury Lodges of Australia family, we’d like to honour and celebrate the living legacy of Southern Ocean Lodge as it continues to lead the way in a next generation of luxury, experiential and sustainable tourism,” Ms Rafferty said.
“A very happy sweet 16th birthday to Southern Ocean Lodge and congratulations to everyone who has contributed to her ongoing, game-changing success,” she said.
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