Luxury by experience
Over the past 15 years, Luxury Lodges of Australia has shaken up what ‘experiential luxury’ means across the country’s most immersive destinations, leading to transformational shifts on numerous levels.
WORDS Fleur Bainger
Walking down a sloping dune, the scene barely seems real. Golden sand meets clear water that quickly turns turquoise, then navy. Below the surface, Ningaloo Reef awaits in a riot of colour and life.
Intense yellow and fiery orange scales from fish species including Coral Cod, Clownfish and Triggerfish catch the eye, swarming around cobalt staghorn spikes. Emerging from the water, the Western Australian sun warms the shoulders as we head towards a row of eco-luxury safari-style tents at Sal Salis Ningaloo Reef. With parrot fish, turtles and rays so abundant, the region’s key attraction – swimming with whale sharks in the UNESCO World Heritage area’s depths – can seem like an afterthought.
Sleeping so close to nature used to be something only for those in swags or tents. Without toilets, showers or fridges, creature comforts were as absent as salt-encrusted skin was present. Luxury wasn’t associated with the outdoors, instead viewed in the glint of chandeliers, the polish of expensive glassware, marble tiles and thread counts – definitely not in sandy feet and wind-swept hair.
But those perceptions have changed. Much of the credit for this goes to Luxury Lodges of Australia (LLoA), the 15-year-old collective (of which Sal Salis is a member) that redefined what it meant to holiday in comfort. The kind of comfort that doesn’t compete with nature, but deepens your experience of it.
At the heart of LLoA’s philosophy is a simple idea: that true luxury lies in rarity of access. “Not just to beautifully conceived places, but locations and experiences of place, because of the knowledge, skill and access that individuals, guides and owners of the lodges have,” says Penny Rafferty, LLoA’s executive chair.
It might mean snorkelling over a remote reef before dining on local seafood. Or being one of a handful of guests at a remote lodge, supporting the local creative community by connecting with Indigenous artists.
Once a niche concept, ‘experiential luxury’ has taken hold in Australia. When LLoA launched in 2010 it made a bold call: that it wouldn’t be a booking engine. With sales off the table and funded by membership fees, the group had to think differently. So, LLoA spoke to travellers hungering for access, authenticity and place.
“We just tapped into that segment. It wasn’t just about the Daintree (Julaymba), the Great Barrier Reef or Ningaloo separately. It was demonstrating that Australia had a critical mass of places that allowed for the sort of access that enabled you to understand the privilege of being there.
“Our focus was on becoming that trusted source of information. We needed to be true to our storytelling and make sure we talked about what made us collectively, distinctively Australian.”
Each of LLoA’s 20 member-properties is remote, many in World Heritage areas. Dedicated to enriching local communities through tourism, they actively collaborate with local producers, artists, makers, specialist guides and other ‘true-blue’ characters.
“The lodges partner with another 4,000 mostly local businesses to create their offering. That’s an incredible economic power lift for regional Australia.
“What people are travelling for now isn’t Sevruga caviar in the desert. It’s to understand what makes a place special, and to feel changed by being there.”
Every one of the collective’s properties offers more than just a place to stay. They offer new ways of seeing. Here are four distinct destinations that embody this ethos.
SAL SALIS A sustainable escape
At Ningaloo, ‘luxury’ includes whale shark encounters with half the number of fellow snorkellers brought along by every other operator in the region. Fewer fins mean closer experiences with the gentle giants, who hoover up krill from March to August.
Back in one of the destination’s 16 hard-floored, bed- and ensuite-equipped tents (15 ‘wilderness’ tents and one ‘honeymoon’ tent), guests may awaken to kangaroos beside their decks as dawn light appears. There’s simply no other accommodation of this calibre along the entire Ningaloo coast.
Today, the Sal Salis’s sustainable canvas structures surrounded by dunes are a coveted outback luxury, but it has taken LLoA time and determination to curb the marketplace’s expectation of overly fancy digs.
Penny puts it down to persistence and having a great story to tell. “The sheer hard yards, wearing the shoe leather down to continuously meet with media, travel advisors and people in our network to get them to understand, to help them go, ‘OK I get that’ … I rarely talk just about rooms.”
Sal Salis is nearly entirely solar powered. Coastal breezes act as air conditioning, and three-minute showers reflect fresh water’s preciousness in the area. Penny says this ‘environment over excess’ ethos is shared across all member lodges.
“The location is the capital asset. Why would you be operating in a place that’s special enough for people to fly across the world to see if you’re not nurturing it?”
SOUTHERN OCEAN LODGE Wild by nature
At Southern Ocean Lodge, location isn’t just a setting – it’s the story. Perched on a secluded clifftop on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island, here you wake to the Southern Ocean roaring at your doorstep and fall asleep to the rustle of wallabies grazing just beyond your suite.
Rooms are gently curved to follow the coastline, with full-length windows that frame the wilderness as if it were a living artwork. You might sip a local wine as a sea eagle soars into view and the dramatic ocean below puts on a show.
Wildlife isn’t scheduled, it’s serendipitous. Kangaroos bound through the low coastal scrub. Koalas laze in manna gums. Sea lions tumble in the surf. Each of Southern Ocean Lodge’s signature experiences – from Remarkable Rocks at golden hour to nocturnal spottings of bats, owls and echidnas – brings Kangaroo Island’s wild beauty into sharp, unforgettable focus.
Here, conservation isn’t a backdrop; it’s part of the experience. Post the 2019/2020 Black Summer bushfires, Southern Ocean Lodge has re-emerged with a renewed sense of purpose. One that embodies LLoA’s commitment to preserving Australia’s most iconic species and habitats. And always with deep respect for life and land.
CAPELLA LODGE Offline island life
Shifting from Kangaroo Island to the Tasman Sea, around 600 km east of Port Macquarie (Guruk), we find UNESCO heritage-listed Lord Howe Island. With no evidence of human habitation before the European Era (from 1788), ‘the last paradise’ is a unique beauty. Capella Lodge’s breathtaking outlook takes in Mount Lidgbird and Mount Gower’s majestic peaks.
Enchantingly remote, the island’s fragile, near-pristine nature is the draw. It’s honoured in the nine-room lodge’s eco-conscious approach, which includes using only pushbikes and golf carts as transport.
Guests scale mountains, meander beneath banyan trees and explore the lagoon, ringed by the planet’s southernmost reef system. But perhaps the greatest luxury on offer is the island’s lack of mobile phone and internet connectivity.
Lord Howe’s geographical isolation facilitates digital disconnection. Wi-fi is available at the Lodge, but it’s slow and intermittent, encouraging guests to log off for their entire stay. This, says Penny, is increasingly seen as a drawcard.
“Offline is the new luxury. Getting off the devices and away from their demands, while connecting with new, enriching things is an evolving trend, one I feel will only grow.”
SILKY OAKS LODGE Wellness in the wilderness
Wellness of a different kind is on offer at Silky Oaks Lodge, only this time ensconced in the 180 million year-old Daintree Rainforest (Kaba Kada). Its solar-powered treehouses sit about an hour’s drive north of Cairns (Gimuy), inside 32 hectares of wilderness on Kuku Yalanji Country, fed by the gushing Mossman River (Jinkalmu).
According to Indigenous beliefs, the waters have life-giving properties, a philosophy echoed in the property’s soulful approach to wellbeing. At Healing Waters Spa, treatments are enhanced by river stones and native herbs, while distinctive ingredients grown onsite at Treehouse Restaurant help guests connect with their tropical surroundings. Penny says those who stay here quickly understand the value of each element.
“There’s an evolution in the understanding of what is the value proposition of these places. It’s more than a transaction: value goes back into the community, the landscape they’ve been able to see, the components on the plate.”
It’s a growing trend.
“There’s a greater desire for provenance and wellness. People are more conscious of what they’re putting into their bodies, they’re interested in who made it, the ethos of it. That’s going to increase.”
As tourism trend setters, Penny says the next step for LLoA is to express what she calls ‘luxury competency,’ further extending travellers’ interpretation of value.
“It’s understanding what it is you’re consuming, using or experiencing. People not just wanting something because it’s the shiniest or most expensive thing, but because of the respect for craft and knowledge and skill. That’s an element of luxury competency. People are interested in that, not just skimming across the surface.”
