Hayman

Background
Hayman (www.hayman.com.au) is an iconic Australian resort in the Whitsunday island chain off the Queensland coast.  The private island resort offers 200 ultra luxury hotel rooms on the the edge of Great Barrier Reef, which is one of the seven natural wonders of the world.  Hayman Island is the most northerly of the 1000 strong  Whitsunday Islands, which offers the best reef access, outstanding fishing, and internationally renowned sailing in the waters of the Coral Sea.

Already an Australian luxury icon for over 60 years, Hayman is now offering the opportunity for a select few purchasers to own a residence on the island for the first time.

Project
Eight Hayman Private Residences will be designed by internationally renowned Australian architect Kerry Hill.  They will be nestled within the undisturbed bushland to the north of the resort, offering complete privacy and unsurpassed views of the Whitsundays Passage and beyond to the Coral Sea.
Hill has also designed six Hayman Marina Residences, which boast absolute waterfront locations and marina berths for boats of up to 200 feet in length.
Homes range in price from A$4m to around A$20m.  Owners will benefit from privileged access to Hayman resort amenities as well as a range of exclusive Resident Benefits.

Our involvement:
Initially engaged to advise on the international marketability of Kerry Hill designed Marina Residences.   We recommended significant changes to the pricing, floor plans, the soft offering, and overall land usage to create a more diverse and marketable offering.   With greater price variation, higher absorption potential and improved proforma returns, we helped our clients to position the project for success.

We then provided input on the entire master planning process, including a re-envisioning the resort to sustain and enhance Hayman’s position as an international leader in island luxury.  We also took on responsibility for sales and marketing of both Private and Marina Residences in Australia, Asia,Europe and North America.

At present, the mobilisation phase of the project was recently completed, which included a refinement of the offering, creation of award winning collateral in both English and Mandarin, and a new resort website.  We established PowerPlay Australia; a joint venture with one of the top Australian luxury realtors to support sales at Hayman, and we are engaging a network of preferred connectors and realtors throughout Australia, Asia, Europe and North America.
Sales of Marina Residences commence April 2011.

Challenges

• With a complex resort offering and multiple interested stakeholders, revisions to building designs impacted the project timeline
• A tropical island location poses some inherent challenges, such as technology and bandwidth issues, weather related construction delays, and especially the flooding challenges which have devastated other parts of Queensland this year
• The purchase process moves slowly.  With extremely wealthy and busy purchasers and an island location, “taking a tour” is a significant time commitment which may take months to organise.  A unique purchase process is required for the Hayman demographic.

Lessons Learned

Absolute privacy is critical to purchasers, especially at the early stages of the purchase process.  Many potential buyers can easily afford this purchase despite recent economic challenges but wish to do so without publicity.  We have developed a unique purchase timeline for each interested prospect.
It is important to ‘run towards rejection’ with these buyers.  The principle of reciprocity in sales conversations applies to billionaires and multi-millionaires alike, but these conversations require a confident and informed salesperson who is able to perform as a facilitator in a significant asset acquisition.

Hayman Videos
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